Personality types and team dynamics

Subconsciously, humans first go self-preservation and tend to seek perfection from our individual perspectives. However, it is important to identify, accept and even take advantage of various personality traits during our interactions with our families at home, colleagues at work, friends in the social space and in other environments with other people.

Wouldn’t our relationships be more productive if we were patient enough to learn to understand each other, rather than have expectations of conformity to what we may expect from our personal points of view or what we may have been told by others to be the ideal situation?

In order to understand or put our behaviour into better perspective, psychologists have studied human beings and helped us come up with personality traits we display elements of. The most common is the classification of human beings as either introverts or extroverts.

Introverts are described as quiet and reserved, whilst extroverts are viewed as the complete opposite; more sociable and outgoing. The use of these two terms gives us a chance to describe a significant part of the human personality and create theories that attempt to explain why we do what we do.

However, these two sole categories are unavoidably limiting. So another term, ambivert, emerged. This describes a person who displays some traits of an introvert and some of an extrovert.  Even with this addition, the categorisation of people into three general buckets is still limiting. To what extent is a person an introvert, extrovert or ambivert? But more importantly, how would these personality traits play out in our teamwork and leadership skills?

A previous employer of mine identified the importance of individuals’ personality strengths and weaknesses and even took a step further to devise a means through which these could be taken advantage of for the overall effectiveness of teams and build better working relationships.

Employees essentially took a test were given two colours which most strongly reflected their personalities. Then they wore identity cards around their necks, which displayed these two colours. So even before speaking to a person walking past you in a corridor, seeing those colours would give an immediate first impression.

Being intrigued by tool and its success in a professional environment, I carried out some additional research and discovered many more personality theories and more detailed categorisation. One that I found particularly interesting was the Jungian theory, which is based on four major categories, as described below:

Mind: Introversion – Extroversion

Introverts prefer solitary activities, think before they speak and get exhausted by social accretion.

Extroverts prefer group activities, thinking while speaking. They get energised by social interaction.

Energy: Intuition – Observation

Intuitive people are imaginative, absorbed in ideas and focus on what might happen.

Observant people are down to earth. They rely on senses, are absorbed in practical matters and focus on what has happened.

Nature: Thinking – Feeling

Thinkers are tough and follow their minds. They focus on objectivity and rationality.

Feelers are sensitive. They focus on harmony and cooperation.

Tactics: Judging – Perceiving

Judging individuals are decisive, prefer clear rules and guidelines, see deadlines as sacred and seek closure.

Prospecting individuals are good at improvising, prefer to keep their options open, are relaxed about their work and seek freedom.

This Jungian theory takes elements from each of these major categories and gives a more descriptive representation of a person’s character. The description might not be fully accurate, but it helps give a better understanding of others and us.

So how do we harness these various displays of personality into a team? Below are a few tips:

Step 1: Acceptance

Find out and accept your team members for who they are.

Step 2: Delegation

Rather than looking at ourselves as one individual tasked to complete an entire process, we could actually achieve greater efficiency if we delegate different tasks to specialists on areas of the task that speak to their strengths. However, rather than a set of machines and conveyor belt, we must remember that we have that added advantage of being human beings in that as much as we have our strengths and weaknesses, we are still able to learn from each other, correct mistakes and give mental boosts where we find each other struggling or falling behind.

In reality, given the pressures of our environment, achieving the perfect team dynamics could be challenging, as many external factors play out. However, we can find ways to better support each other. Some suggestions include:

Establishing a unified understanding of the teams vision and objectives of the task, creating clear delineation of roles, gaining some understanding of EVERY member’s role and granting credit where it is deserved.

Others are supporting team members when they struggle, holding regular meetings, eliminating focus on flaws and giving constructive criticism.

OYIN EGBEYEMI