12/22/2023

Provide These Three Things to Motivate Your Team

What leaders need to know about personality and motivation

Have you taken an assessment describing your personality profile? Your "type" is a set of characteristics proven to hang together statistically. For example, if you’re an introvert who tends to accept what the environment offers rather than control it, you are grouped with people sharing your pattern of behaviors. Your type is assigned a name such as an S, Stabilizer, Supporter, Air or the color yellow. Your group shares preferences to act introvertedly and express ideas indirectly rather than directly. You prefer to listen rather than talk and prefer routine over spontaneity.

As a student of personality theory and co-author of a personality-based assessment, I encourage people to investigate their behavior patterns to understand themselves, appreciate differences among people and gain the skill of versatility. Your ability to recognize differences in people’s personalities is akin to speaking the native language in a foreign country. It makes navigating the world less challenging than it already is.

But here’s the rub. Many personality assessments declare they are about motivation, answering the question, "What motivates you?" They claim to reveal the "essentials of motivation" by describing what motivates each personality type or temperament. I hope you'll join me in exploring why I believe these "motivation" assessments are misguided.

Please select this link to read the complete article from SmartBrief.