FLP

Agenda

• Personality Vs. Attitude: What does this mean?
• Theory: Personality Types
• Client Scenario Vs Consultant Attitude: Understanding Attitude as an Element of Personality
• Overview Summary
• Take Away: 3 Key approaches to adopt as a Leader or Consultant

Personality Vs. Attitude

Personality:
The combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character (Oxford Dictionary).
Personality is ingrown, your traits, what makes you, Unique.


Attitude:
A settled way of thinking or feeling about something (Oxford Dictionary).
Attitude is an element of your personality, the situational response of your personality to situations you face and based on personal experiences.

Personality Type Theories

Animal Personality Tests

• Tame a Lion?
• Persuade a Horse?
• Engage a Monkey?
• Understand an Owl?

Personality Types A, B, C

• Type A: Ambitious, Highly Organised, Impatient, Proactive
• Type B: Social, Thrive on Collaboration, Excellent Communicators
• Type C: Extremely detail oriented, highly introverted, People pleasers

Carl Jung's 16 Personality Types

• Random behaviour is the result of differences in the way people prefer to use their mental capacities.
• Perceiving (taking information in) Vs. Judging (organising information)

There you go.
Hugely insightful and useful theories.

Pick a Personality type theory that works for you.

Understand your colleagues.

Manage your relationships at work and on client site!

Straightforward right?

BUT what do you do when you’ve planned to speak with a LION, but they react like a HORSE?

Client Scenarios Vs. Consultant Attitude: Understanding Attitude as an element of Personality

TEST YOURSELF: Here’s a little fun task. Match up the Client Scenario with your Consultant Attitude...

Client Scenario (Situational Response)

• “Don’t borrow my watch to tell me what time it is”-Consultants just steal the job that other FTEs could perform
• Obstacle Course- You’re a threat to my job/In the way
• Caving In- I am stressed/under pressure at work
• I am Jack: All work and No play
• Aloof: I am just unfriendly/grumpy

Consultant Attitude (Situational Response)

• Be Understanding
• Be Supportive and Open
• Be Professional
• Be Adaptable
• Be You!

What are the right responses?

By my experience, Client scenario 1, lines up perfectly to Consultant Attitude 1, etc.

There is no true answer, you are who you are, and you make a conscious choice to respond how you do.

That is, an ideal Situational Response is based on your experiences.

To Summarise

• Personality theories provide a good basis for understanding people and how they work.
• Consider situational responses i.e. how the personality consciously chooses to respond to situations based on experiences.
• Situational responses are unique to individuals, situations and their experiences.

Summary Contd.

• Client scenario and Consultant responses are situational responses. Ever stop and think: Aloof (no.5), may put up this persona because that is how they cope with work or how their personality has adapted to work environments to ensure the job gets done?

Summary Contd.

• You can categorise personalities, but you have to understand and work with them in order to get the best out of individuals. Difficult, but when approached right, could make our jobs much easier

“Attitude is ‘merely’ an element of Personality. A situational response as a result of your adaptability to changing situations or based on your experience”

Take Away: 3 Key Approaches as a Leader (or Consultant)

• Embrace the value in all personality types- This ensures you get the right person assigned to the right task
• Remember, you can’t use a cookie cutter approach with everyone- Be adaptable to personalities
• Personality is Situational- This improves your communication with each individual (meaning you get the best out of them)