When we think of successful people in business, leaders, entrepreneurs, managers and sales icons, there are several key characteristics that we associate with them. A natural ability to network and build relationships, quick decision making, decisive action, an ability to lead a team in their direction and an ability to energise and enthuse those around them. But do these traits have the same impact when you’re not in the same physical space and working at a distance. Does the larger than life, decisive fast actioning, extrovert, leader create the same “follow me” culture when you’re not in his or her physical presence? Does the enforced remoteness suit different personalities and characteristics better and what impact does this therefore have on our teams and the people we should be looking for?
Some of the business leaders that we work with at Maara are already noticing this change.
During a recent conversation with the CEO of a global block-chain based business, the changing personality dynamic in their permanently remote company arose.
When the business began working fully remotely the initial findings were that teams worked as they had done whilst in the same physical space, however quickly they started to notice subtle changes within their teams. Those with more calm, collaborative and gentle communication styles were now able to garner more remote team engagement and affect outcomes.
So much of human interaction and understanding is provided by reading subtle, almost imperceivable body changes, tone or gestures all of which are diluted virtually, especially as IT fatigue starts to kick in. I’m sure we’ve all experienced emails and messages which have been read in an unintended manner without the context around them whereby a similar comment face to face would pass with little issue. In remote working situations, people with strong or dominant approaches often lose the subtle physical and facial gestures required to balance the delivery of their communications, unwittingly creating situations which require resolving or cause unwanted offence and are damaging to a team’s connection and success.
Recent social studies have supported a clear difference in preference and effectiveness at remote working amongst individuals. In a study by the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University, researchers looked at personality traits and thinking applied against preferences for virtual teamwork. The clear outcome was that the trait of openness (related to being imaginative and having a love for trying new things) was most important with high scorers on openness the happiest to embrace virtual team work. As expected, although less significant than openness, levels of introversion or extroversion was a significant factor especially with extroverts struggling more in a virtual rather than face to
face environment. Aside from personality traits, the study also found that a person’s favoured decision making style was relevant. Those who prefer quick decisive styles fare better with virtual environments where discussions are more typically abbreviated, and decisions taken more quickly.
This aspect was reinforced by a recent German study which looked at the eight great competencies to see which were the most important for a virtual way of working. The ‘leading and deciding’ competency (looking at decision making and confidence to act on own initiative), along with ‘analysing and interpreting’ competencies (based on writing and expressing oneself clearly), were shown to be the most important. Team members with these characteristics are more likely to thrive within a virtual environment and therefore become more dominant as the team grows and develops as well as within the business overall.
Alongside these personality preferences, most individuals respond strongly to the energy given off by colleagues so by removing a physical presence the dynamic and effectiveness of both the individuals and the teams may change.‘Socialites’, a personality type that thrive by influencing others and interacting with work colleagues, percolate energy in a physical space and being very adept at reading the more subtle physical cues often lose confidence in remote working situations where there is less immediate affirmation. ‘Commanders’, as the name implies are generally bold, opinionated and influencers amongst their colleagues yet in a remote setting struggle to be heard as they depend on energy drawn from in-person interactions. A third group who tend to find remote working situations challenging are ‘stabilisers’. These personalities are highly collaborative and draw from others energy and input yet without this presence struggle to energise themselves independently.
With research clearly identifying and exploring these differences within our teams and with remote working set become a consistent part of the working mix what can employers take from this and apply to their changing work environment?
The best form of recruitment is based on a very specific search to find the most suitable candidates, taking into account factors such as team dynamic, role requirements and future progression. In the way that we work at Maara, understanding the characteristics that are going to help people succeed enables us to find the best people for our clients. This greater knowledge can allow us to assess more thoroughly for the characteristics required to succeed not only in the role but also in the working environment offered based on the requirements for analysis, decisiveness, adaptability and extroversion within the role alongside most suitable personality types and screen candidates against these.
Likewise, an understanding of these dynamics and the challenges that different working environments place on different employees allows employers to understand their team’s potential challenges and create flexible solutions to ensure that all have the correct support, working environments and processes in place to enable them to achieve their best. Methods to ensure decision making processes that work for all personality types; social (remote or in person) situations to provide the required connections for extroverts and introverts to thrive; working situations geared towards specific personality type
requirements such as small online collaborative breakouts and clear meeting processes to ensure all attendees have a chance to voice their opinion.
Leading with a ‘knowledge first’ approach provides business owners and managers an opportunity to assess teams for the type of roles and personality types within them and create the best working environment based on a team-wide rather than company-wide approach to ensure that all staff are as effective as possible. Ultimately this continues to highlight the fundamental understanding that individuals can get to the same point via a different path and that a combination of multiple approaches can bring a range of benefits to the business.
It is clear that the way in which we work has changed. Businesses are now in a fantastic position to take the knowledge from the social studies available along with the findings from their own 2-year remote working experience to truly create flexible working environments that can really bring out the very best in all of their staff and help them thrive as a business.
Surely that has to be a very positive take away from an unprecedented global experience?