Almost all conflict is a direct result of poor communication.
I’m constantly teaching the importance of understanding personality styles in preventing poor communication, which in turn reduces conflict and misunderstandings.
When you understand your personality style, and the style of the person you’re communicating with, you know how you’re contributing to conflict and how to avoid it.
Most conflict is due to people being immature in their personality style(s). Maturity has nothing to do with age.
You can be a 70-year-old immature high D, I, S, or C. It has everything to do with how much you understand your strengths and weaknesses.
If you haven’t taken a DISC Personality test, DO IT NOW! I go in-depth on 16 different points divided out by personality style. Here are just the points:
People with a High D contribute to conflict by:
- Intimidating others, especially with competition
- Hurting feelings
- Leaving out details when communicating
- Bucking the system
People with a High I contribute to conflict by:
- Hogging the limelight and talking too much
- Not following through with what they say
- Not taking things seriously
- Overlooking details and losing sight of the task
People with a High S contribute to conflict by:
- Resisting change, even when it’s needed
- Dragging their feet when making decisions
- Allowing themselves to be walked over and becoming resentful
- Being hard to motivate
People with a High C contribute to conflict by:
- Challenging others by over-questioning them
- Primarily pointing out the negative with a critical eye
- Assuming or insisting they are right
- Being nit-picky or obsessive-compulsive about details
In the Avoiding Conflict guide, I go through every single one of those points and help you discover the “why.”
This allows you as a team member, leader, parent, and child to understand how the people in your life are going to handle situations.
Once you know how to handle and address conflict, your communication improves drastically!
Question: What do you want to know about conflict or personality styles? Leave a voice message (the icon to the right) if you want a chance to be featured on a future episode.
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Great Info Chris – Can someone train themselves to be a different personality style?
Hey Robert, you definitely don’t want to become a different style, you just want to understand them well, be able to pick them out, and then lean in their direction. If you do that, you will win with communication. Thanks for the question!
If you’re really interested, check out the video I have in the store. It explains a ton about each style.
Great stuff Chris.
Should you be shooting for diversity of styles in your staff? Or would it just be easier for me to hire a bunch of folks who have my same profile, so I don’t have to learn how to deal with the others? 🙂