The Manager's Communication Toolkit

Tools and Techniques for Leading Difficult Personalities

Tina Kuhn

• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781626345898
• eBook ISBN: 9781626345904
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

How to Communicate with Difficult People in the Workplace and Successfully Lead Any Personality Type This is a clear and practical guide to high performance business communication. Successful managers keep their organizations and teams focused on their goals and avoid the mire of drama and frustration. This book teaches managers how to deal with the most difficult people, listen and respond to others, resolve conflict, and be a stronger leader. In The Manager's Communication Toolkit, Tina Kuhn, an accomplished Senior Executive with 35 years of expertise in organizational transformation, introduces hands-on strategies for dealing with the ten most challenging personality types: the Manipulator, Gossiper, Naysayer, Controller, Perfectionist, Yes-Man, Drama Queen, Recluse, Whiner, and Liar. Dividing the book into three parts, she breaks down the different communication tools, illustrates techniques for working purposefully and skillfully with the personalities she profiles, and shows readers how to explore their own communication and management styles. ?This book is for anyone who needs to communicate with others at work—bosses, coworkers, subordinates, and customers. It provides a framework to have less conflict, better communication, and stronger leadership techniques. Ultimately, it can positively influence all relationships: at work, home, school, or anywhere else.

PART

Personality Types and Communication Tools

Effective communication is about using the right tool and approach for the situation. In order to do that, you have to understand human relationships and the different communication preferences of the people involved—including yourself. In this first part, you will learn how different personality types—especially difficult ones—require different communication techniques. The more you know about each team member and how they like to communicate, the more effective and efficient you will become.

You will also develop a more in-depth understanding of the different communication tools available in a work environment. These include email, texting, face-to-face conversations, telephone conversations, meetings, presentations, and written reports. Each method available to you offers advantages and disadvantages, depending on the situation and people involved, and we will explore these.

Effective communication not only looks at the personalities and tools involved but also the social relationship and situation. Situations can be formal or informal; the relationship can vary from a new boss to a team member to long-term friendly coworkers and anything in between.

Finally, this part discusses why it is important to know the personality types of each person. Each individual has certain attributes that make particular formats and styles of communication more or less effective when communicating to that individual. It is up to the manager to know what to use, with whom, and when.

This section gives you a framework to motivate your team members. By utilizing their strengths, you can develop a high-functioning team so your organization will meet its goals.

Chapter 1

Understanding Different Personality Types

Most organizations are only as successful as their leadership. As a leader, you have multiple lines of responsibility to your subordinates, coworkers, supervisors, and clients. Balancing everything can be a delicate, demanding, and exhausting task. Success depends on knowing as much as you can about the most important assets your organization has: the people—including yourself—on whom you depend to make everything happen. In this chapter, we’ll take a look at the various types of people you might expect to interact with, trying to learn the most effective ways of ensuring good communication with each type.

Being an effective leader and communicator depends on understanding yourself and others. For managers to communicate effectively, they should understand what motivates and drives each person they encounter, which can provide a framework for rapid assessment of strategies to bring about a successful outcome. It provides a method to observe and understand your own behavior and that of others and to analyze conflicts and miscommunications, enabling you to resolve them in a positive manner.

Many different models exist to describe the different dimensions of individual personality. In my experience, the most useful practice focuses on diagnosing and neutralizing negative behavior patterns. When people feel stressed, they may resort to undesirable behaviors as defense mechanisms. The negative behaviors can manifest in any of the following ways: manipulation, gossip, naysaying, controlling, perfectionism, people pleasing, drama, reclusiveness, whining, and lying. The more information you have about a colleague or subordinate’s personality and communication preferences, the greater the likelihood you’ll be able to defuse potential stress and generate positive interactions. As a manager, recognizing the uniqueness of those with whom you work is crucial for assessing, connecting, motivating, and resolving conflict.

When a leader takes the time to listen to and observe those around them, they become more adept at identifying individual motivations. Whether you are meeting someone for the first time or talking to someone you have known for twenty years, shifting your behavior and tailoring the interaction to their personality will lead to more effective communication and better relationships.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION WITH DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES

Different personality types require different techniques for the most effective communication. How do you communicate in your organization or team? Do you know how much contact the people you communicate with prefer or need? Does your boss need to hear from you frequently to feel comfortable that your tasks are going as planned? Does your customer prefer email, phone calls, or face-to-face meetings? These questions are worth considering, because the more you know about how people like to communicate, the better rapport and relationships you will be able to establish—and the more efficient your organization, tasks, or project will be. An effective manager collaborates and builds relationships at all levels of the workplace community.

Poor communication can compromise your reputation and effectiveness. Any person (team member, boss, coworker, customer, end user, member of another department, someone in the broader community) can either derail or promote an activity, project, or task. To leverage the whole community, you must build relationships with all stakeholders. Good communication skills help build good relationships.

Some relationships will be easy: communication will flow back and forth smoothly. With others, the road to effective communication is bumpy and not much fun. In these cases, already-difficult relationships can be compounded to unmanageable levels of stress during a crisis. To navigate those situations, leaders must be able to manage themselves as well as their teams. Moving forward depends on the manager’s ability to think clearly and rationally.

To be a good manager, you must be able to communicate effectively to all different types of people in a variety of styles and mediums. The good news is that these techniques work no matter who you are dealing with. The subsequent chapters will teach you how to adapt your communication in order to work with various types of individuals: how to present yourself, how to listen and respond to others, how to recognize stressed people, and how to effectively resolve conflict.

To get started, of course, you need to understand yourself. This includes not only your communication preferences but also the tools that are available to you, which we will explore in the next chapter.

Chapter 2

Your Communication ToolKit

Just as different people have differing communication styles and needs, you have at your disposal tools with differing capabilities. Depending on the situation and the person with whom you are communicating, some will be more suitable than others. This chapter will help you establish ground rules for choosing the best tool for a given scenario and communication partner.

We have a variety of communications media available: face-to-face and telephone conversations, email, texting, group meetings, presentations, and written reports. Each can be effective if it is used in the right context, but each can be disastrous if used in the wrong way. People with different personality types are not all equally comfortable with any single given tool, and the higher the stakes, the more critical it is for you to choose the most appropriate method for the other person in the situation. After all, when you are going into a potentially stressful interaction, it does you little good to have other people on edge any more than necessary. It is up to you as the manager to ensure that you and your team utilize the correct communication tool for each situation.

There are four basic groups of communication tools widely used in the workplace:

1. Face-to-face (including video teleconferencing) and telephone communication are individual meetings with you and one other person. Face-to-face meetings are the most effective type of communication technique for building rapport, collaboration, or confrontation.
2. Email and texting are written, nearly instantaneous messages extensively used in the workforce. Email and texting are ubiquitous but may help or harm, depending on the message and situation.
3. Group meetings and presentations involve multiple people meeting together. Presentations are group meetings with prepared information to describe and/or review. Both are great for keeping everyone on the same page but challenging to keep on track.
4. Written reports are formal written documents. Reports are effective for documenting information multiple people need to agree upon or approve.

Let’s talk about basic communication tools and the benefits and pitfalls of each.

FACE-TO-FACE AND TELEPHONE COMMUNICATION

When it comes to communication intended to foster collaboration, confrontation, or to conduct any other type of sensitive conversation that could cause an emotional reaction, face-to-face (including video teleconferences) and telephone communication work better than email and texting. In face-to-face discussions you have access to all the body’s signals: words, body language, gestures, paralinguistic interaction (voice, volume inflection, and pitch), facial expressions, and appearance. An estimated 93 percent of human communication is nonverbal and paralinguistic; these cues provide valuable information to your communication partner, determining in many cases how your message is received. Further, another person’s nonverbal, paralinguistic, and body-language feedback can help you perceive and adjust what you say and how you are saying it to be most effective. In face-to-face and telephone conversations, active listening is an extremely important component. Often when people talk to each other, they do not listen attentively. They are distracted, half listening, or busy formulating a response to what is being said. Especially in situations involving frequent communication partners, people assume they have heard what the other person is saying many times before, so rather than paying attention, they focus on how they can respond to prove their point or win the argument.

“Active listening is an important way to bring about changes in people. Despite the popular notion that listening is a passive approach, clinical and research evidence clearly shows that sensitive listening is a most effec...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I: Personality Types and Communication Tools
• Chapter 1: Understanding Different Personality Types
• Chapter 2: Your Communication ToolKit
• Chapter 3: Using Your Communication Tools
• PART II: Building Bridges: Getting past Issues and Back on Track
• Chapter 4: The Manipulator
• Chapter 5: The Gossiper
• Chapter 6: The Naysayers
• Chapter 7: The Controller
• Chapter 8: The Perfectionist
• Chapter 9: The Yes-Man
• Chapter 10: The Drama Queen
• Chapter 11: The Recluse
• Chapter 12: The Whiner
• Chapter 13: The Liar
• PART III: Your Own Communication and Leadership Style
• Chapter 14: Your Own Management Style
• Chapter 15: Confrontation
• Chapter 16: Leadership
• Chapter 17: Next Steps
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• NOTES
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR