David Brent - the ultimate persuader boss
If you are a persuader boss you love working as a team (as long as you get most of the limelight) you like to be thought of as a fun boss are extremely sociable with your team members. You love any excuse to innovate (and may drive your team crazy, especially the examiners with the changes you make to keep yourself interested) but will delegate the implementation of your new ideas to your team – you’re not great on follow-through. Your attention to detail isn’t great – again you can look to others (especially examiners) to help you with that.
In dealing with other persuaders be careful playing with them too much on monkey island – if you may get them too overexcited you may p.o. all your other team members. They don’t see this as valuable team-building, they’ll see it as a great big noisy waste of time. Praise your fellow persuaders loudly and in public to get the best out of them. If you need to discipline them, do it in private with a light touch or you’ll have a sulky kid on your hands.
You’re not a bad fit with unifiers, since you’re a people-person too, but be careful not to tease them too much. Also be careful to take their emotional problems seriously – they’ll see you as flippant and uncaring if you don’t pay them enough attention. Praise the unifier’s caring ways, the way they constantly think of others and are always striving to take everyone’s feelings into consideration. Praise their people skills, their kindness and thoughtfulness and what an asset they are to the team. If you need to discipline a unifier, tread carefully. If you go in there to hard you’ll have a weeping, emotional mess on your hands. Be firm, but kind – don’t give them a reason to act like a martyr – you’ll never hear the end of it and they’ll badmouth you behind your back.
You also share common traits with rulers, in that you too are pretty impatient and like things done quickly (although for you it’s more an attention-span deficit, whereas they are totally goal-oriented). You can get a lot done with a ruler team member if you keep it short and snappy and let them know exactly what’s expected of them by when. They love to be delegated to – it makes them feel important. Praise their results and you’ll get a lot out of them. Do it in public unless they’re unusually shy. If you need to discipline them keep it super-business-like. Don’t get sarcastic with them, but you can be straight-talking. Lay it on the line, do it quickly, let them vent if they need to then move on. They will not usually bear a grudge and if they do get mad it’s probably because they’re kicking themselves – it’s seldom about you.
Examiners are your boss personality type’s weakest fit and you have to watch that you’re patient with their fussy and seemingly laborious ways. They probably won’t think you’re funny and you need to get over that right now. Use them to do all the finicky analytical stuff that you hate – make it absolutely clear what the deadline is and compliment them on their attention to detail – praise the way they did something as opposed to the end result. If you need to discipline an examiner you need to be very precise – they will want to know what was unacceptable and why. Give them as much detail as you can – dates, times, incidents – and if you can give them a head’s up that you’re going to be talking to them about it they’re less likely to sit opposite you like a deer in headlights – examiners aren’t big on surprises. It’s never a good idea to call an examiner to a meeting without having given them an agenda – their processing time is much longer than your other team members and you’ll miss out on their valuable input if you don’t prepare them in advance.
