6 work styles and how to help team members discover theirs
Workplace collaboration isn’t always a walk in the park. However, bringing diverse minds together can also be a very powerful thing. More collaborative teams lead to increased productivity, creativity, and growth opportunities.
As a leader, it’s important to reflect on your own work style and empower your team members to understand theirs, too. Only then will your team members be able to collaborate effectively and produce their best work. This guide explains how to make that happen.
What are work styles?
Work styles are the ways your personality impacts your work. It’s about what you enjoy doing, the way you naturally work, and what you’re good at. Understanding your work style is key to advancing in your career goals and synergizing with others.
A work style is the primary way someone approaches tasks, solves problems and interacts with others at their job.
Unfortunately, over-indexing on personality types and other identifiers can often cause you to develop limiting beliefs, or restricting judgments about yourself. These can diminish your self-esteem, cause impostor syndrome, introduce negativity to an otherwise positive collaborative space, and damage team morale.
This is why it’s important not to let your personal work style define you. Rather, it should empower you to capitalize on your strengths, improve your weaknesses, and understand how to work better with others.
Understanding the importance of working styles
A working style encompasses personality traits, attitudes and actions at work. Your style influences your responses to challenges, approaches to problem solving and team interactions.
While you likely are influenced by more than one working style, your primary working style can help determine which environments help you thrive.
Understanding working styles will enhance individual strengths, elevating productivity and success. This knowledge will also help recognise individual biases that need to be overcome.
You can use awareness of working styles to adapt to diverse approaches, improving teamwork. Understanding how others approach work enhances collaboration and ultimately contributes to organisational success.
Some roles can also benefit from specific working styles that align with the position. Understanding working styles can help guide career paths and foster employee engagement.
Knowing your work style comes with several benefits:
- Better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses
- Happier and more productive at work.
- More effective collaboration.
- More informed decision making.
Danielle Boris, CEO and founder of Sandbox Together, said when you know your work style, you’re able to find environments where you’re able to thrive.
“You can ask the right questions at interviews, you can figure out why you’re happy or unhappy at work,” Boris said. “You have better conversations with your managers, your colleagues and your teams. The more we know about how we work, the better we can work together.”
As for Peter Griscom, CEO of Tradefluence, he emphasizes that knowing your work style illuminates not only your strengths, but also areas where you can improve — making it “absolutely critical” for career growth. “You have to know your working style, because it shows where your shortcomings will be,” he said.
6 working styles to understand team member behavior
While not everyone can be neatly defined by one work style, understanding the six main working styles can help you better understand yourself and your team members. Only then can you provide everyone with what they need to do their job well. Below we explore six types of work styles.
We encourage you to first understand your own working style before identifying those of your team members. This will help you notice and avoid any biases you may have about work as you help your team members.
1. Independent or logical
Key strengths: Determined, hardworking, skilled at creating unique and visionary work
Areas to improve: Poor communication, not easy to manage, often overlook the planning phase
Independent or logical team members, also known as doers, need their own space to do great work. Supervision and micro-managing aren’t your cup of tea, as you’d much rather tackle problems solo.
You tend to be great at problem framing—you can look at an obstacle and analyze it to come up with a logical, well-formulated solution. This often results in unique and visionary ideas that deliver a lot of value.
However, with this lone wolf work style, you might struggle with more collaborative work. You may feel that your focus gets derailed by instruction and idea sharing, resulting in a lack of planning and communication.
These individuals thrive in structured environments that demand data-driven decisions and clear objectives. As strong individual contributors, they sometimes forget to keep others in the loop about their actions or plans.
Four common traits of logical individuals:
- Methodical
- Analytical
- Goal-oriented
- Focused
Jobs that suit logical individuals include:
- Financial Analyst
- Project Manager
- Engineer
Example team member with an independent or logical working style: Consider a wide-eyed entrepreneur. You create your own compass rather than following another’s. When told how to dream or where to place your focus, you often struggle to put forward your best work.
Rinat Hadas, the chief of staff at JumpCrew, drives JumpCrew’s strategic and operational priorities, which requires a logical mind and approach. While she describes her work style as primarily logical, she is also detail-oriented and supportive, and minimally idea-oriented.
2. Cooperative
Key strengths: Great communicator, highly interpersonal
Areas to improve: Performing independently
On the opposite end of the work style spectrum, we have the cooperative worker. You love teamwork in the workplace and thrive when giving and receiving feedback.
Cooperative individuals are often the “glue” that holds a team together. They thrive in group settings and value teamwork and consensus, and collaborating and actively engaging with others energizes them. Their ability to foster strong relationships and contribute to a collective effort makes them valuable team players.
Work style example:
A project manager who excels in collaborative environments, enjoys leading team discussions, and facilitates group decision-making to achieve project goals.
Rather than writing ideas in a notebook, you prefer to express your ideas verbally and develop them with the help of the group. For this reason, cooperative team members tend to excel at communication.
Of course, as the opposite of the independent worker, individuals with a cooperative work style often struggle to work alone. Ideas may not come as naturally without collaboration, or you may feel restless without frequent team interaction.
Strengths:
- Excellent team players
- Skilled at building relationships
- Open to diverse perspectives and ideas
Weaknesses:
- Slow decision-making
- Difficulty working independently and making individual decisions
- Lack ideas when working alone
Example team members with cooperative working styles: Hiring managers and project management specialists often fall into the collaborative category. Not only is your work highly interpersonal, but you value having your ideas seen by another set of eyes before implementing.
3. Proximity
Key strengths: Adaptable, balanced
Areas to improve: Not all projects allow for a solo/teamwork balance
With a proximity work style you perform a careful balancing act—you value solo work without sacrificing collaboration. You may prefer to take a task and work it out yourself, then return to the team and receive feedback to make your work better.
Proximity-driven individuals value closeness and personal interaction. They prefer working in close physical proximity to their team members, appreciating face-to-face engagement.
While they can tackle tasks independently, they crave the immediate feedback and connection that comes from working closely with others.
Work style example:
A sales representative who likes prospecting alone but prefers in-person interactions and engaging with customers directly.
People with this style reap the benefits of autonomy without needing to isolate themselves from their team members. You also benefit from socializing and receiving help, making proximity one of the most adaptable work styles.
While there isn’t much that proximity team members can’t do, not every work environment allows for this perfect balance between interaction and heads-down work. Creating a spreadsheet usually doesn’t have a “collaboration stage” just as a team meeting doesn’t always offer time to think and work alone.
Strengths:
- Balanced between solo and collaborative work
- Quick to provide and receive feedback
- Strong ability to build rapport
Weaknesses:
- Struggles with remote or distributed work environments
- Distraction or noise may affect focus
- Dependent on immediate response
Example team members with proximity working styles: Due to the adaptability of proximity working styles, you can perform well in nearly every area of business, from management to finance to marketing.
4. Supportive
Key strengths: Emotionally intelligent, self-aware, skilled at mediating conflict, excellent at facilitating collaboration
Areas to improve: Can get distracted, overly reliant on others, may struggle to make tough decisions
Think of the most empathetic team members in your organization. Chances are, they have a supportive work style. Supportive team members strive to form strong relationships and improve team morale. This often makes you a great mediator and peacemaker when conflict arises.
Supportive team members have a superpower: keen emotional sensitivity. If someone on your team is having a bad day or struggling to complete tasks, you’ll be the first to notice. You can lean on them to identify an unspoken problem that may, in the moment, just feel like some tension in the air.
However, emotional intelligence can also be distracting at times. When there’s a major decision to make but something doesn’t feel quite right to the supportive worker, you may not be able to move forward until it’s worked out.
Supportive individuals sometimes let their empathy turn into a desire to please others. When this happens, they can lose sight of the overall project goal in favour of keeping everyone happy. Their preference for consensus can also delay decision making.
In the same vein, supportive team members may feel uncomfortable confronting a disruptive teammate, as you may worry about that team member’s reaction.
Four common traits of supportive individuals:
- Emotionally intelligent
- Diplomatic
- Sociable
- Helpful
Jobs that suit supportive individuals include:
- Human Resources Manager
- Social Worker
- Team Leader
Example team members with supportive working styles: Managers and members of your operations or HR team may have supportive work styles, as your jobs require attention to your team’s needs. Team members who step up for volunteer roles, such as event planning or mentor programs, may also fall into the supportive work style.
Joe Vu, digital marketing manager at QuickFi, describes his work style as supportive. He said his skill set, communication style and ability to process a problem into a solution supports the goals of many people at QuickFi.
“Having a supportive working style helps you understand both the challenges that are faced by all teams in an organization, and also the accountability and goals that translate to tangible success,” Vu said. “Understanding these things helps you accomplish larger organizational goals, which puts you in a position to succeed.”
5. Detail-oriented
Key strengths: Strategic, thoughtful, practiced at minimizing risks, effective at providing order and stability
Areas to improve: Working slowly, getting too caught up in details, seeing the big picture
If you need someone who dots every “i” and crosses every “t,” look to the detail-oriented worker. Also known as learners, these individuals are first to read the fine print. If you fit this style, you tend to be extremely strategic and data-oriented, thinking through small details that could become bigger issues down the road.
Detail oriented individuals are meticulous and systematic. They thrive in structured environments that demand attention to specifics. They possess excellent organisational skills and contribute to a team's stability by ensuring accuracy and order.
You can trust a detail-oriented team member to minimize risk, like correcting errors before a document ever touches the boss’ desk. Accuracy (specifically in wording and grammar) matters a lot to you, to the point that there’s very little room for imperfection.
While detail oriented individuals excel at planning, their cautious approach might slow down execution. Their need for thoroughness can sometimes result in delays when completing tasks.
Of course, detail-orientation can sometimes feel overwhelming. Nothing is perfect, yet the detail-oriented worker doesn’t settle for anything less than perfection. This can cause you to quickly experience burnout and fatigue. It can also stall a project’s progress.
Four common traits of detail oriented individuals:
- Organised
- Diligent
- Careful
- Reliable
Jobs that suit detail oriented individuals include:
- Accountant
- Quality Control Specialist
- Research Scientist
Example team members with detail-oriented working styles: Writing, editing, and teaching are professions that attract many detail-oriented team members.
Aaron Warrick, CEO of Reju, identifies as primarily logical and detail-oriented, which he said stems from his background as a computer programmer and control-system engineer. “I’m very analytical and sequential in my thinking,” he said. The dual workstyle has helped him in his entrepreneurial endeavors. “You have to look at all the possibilities, and when problems arise, find effective solutions to them.”
6. Idea-oriented
Key strengths: Optimistic, inspiring to others, effective at facilitating change
Areas to improve: Unstructured, may neglect details, often fail to follow-up
The opposite of the detail-oriented work style is the idea-oriented work style. These big-picture thinkers help facilitate large-scale change. Essentially, you put away the magnifying glass and pull out the telescope.
Idea oriented individuals are creative and visionary. They thrive on innovation and are skilled at generating novel ideas. They inspire others with their enthusiasm and forward looking perspectives.
While idea-oriented team members inspire their teammates to dream outside the box, you don’t tend to organize details well. It’s a highly unstructured work style that often places the brunt of the work on people who are better at planning. Keeping focus on the big idea does help them remain resilient in the face of project obstacles.
Four common traits of idea oriented individuals:
- Ambitious
- Influential
- Visionary
- Resilient
Jobs that suit idea oriented individuals:
- Marketing Director
- Entrepreneur
- Creative Director
Example team members with idea-oriented working styles: Idea-oriented individuals are typically in more artistic or big-picture company roles, such as marketing, graphic design, or even senior leadership.
Erik Sussman, CEO and founder of Institute of Financial Wellness, considers himself ideas-oriented and supportive. “It’s a good fit for my career because as an entrepreneur, you have to have a vision that excites you and inspires others’ creativity,” he said. Over his career, Sussman has recognized that he’s good at sales, but not at the detail work required for operations, software or building systems to process sales.
How to find your work style
So, what is your work style?
Since work styles are often subconscious, it isn’t always easy to notice which one fits you best. As we mentioned before, not everyone will cleanly fit into one of these work styles. Some people may be a cross between two or more of them.
To help determine your work style, we’ll explore some tips that will help you better understand your work style and those of your team members.
1. Consider how you communicate
We often associate the ways we communicate with our personalities. Certain communication styles correlate very closely with specific types of people. For example, people who communicate directly tend to be more extroverted and less sensitive.
The same goes for working styles. Idea-oriented individuals tend to be charismatic individuals that speak loudly and use hand gestures to communicate their ideas. On the other hand, supportive individuals often prefer one-on-one communication with their peers and are active listeners. You’ll likely see them making eye contact, nodding their heads, and allowing their emotions to show on their faces.
2. Think about what type of teammate you are
Imagine yourself collaborating on a project with a team. Without over-thinking, what part of the project do you gravitate toward?
Do you want to outline the project plan then step back? If so, you might have an idea-oriented work style.
Do you prefer talking through the project with the whole team before getting started? If so, you might have a collaborative or supportive work style.
Do you want to complete the bulk of the project yourself? If so, you might have an independent or logical work style.
Are you the teammate who stays up late the night before to proofread everything and make edits? If so, you might have a detail-oriented work style.
When working with a team, you likely adopt the role that makes you feel most helpful. While this inclination may be subconscious, paying attention to it can help you determine your work style.
3. Pay attention to what engages you
When you’re on the job, what makes you feel happiest?
Do you feel a sense of accomplishment when organizing things and checking tasks off your to-do list? This points to detail-orientation.
Do you enjoy creating an agenda for a meeting, but then allow the meeting conversation to naturally ebb and flow? This points to a proximity work style.
Do you feel most fulfilled helping your fellow team members complete complicated tasks? This points to collaborative and supportive work styles.
Work styles aren’t just about what you’re good at. They’re also about what you love doing—what makes you feel job satisfaction.
4. Record how you spend your time
Often, there’s some dissonance between what we want to do and what we spend most of our time doing at work. Pay close attention to how you allocate the hours of your day.
If you’re spending far more time than you need to on a certain task, this task probably doesn’t align with your work style. While you may not be able to cut that task out altogether, you can move forward with greater awareness and potentially find ways to make it more doable.
On the other hand, if you notice that you breeze through a task that takes your team members several hours or days to complete, you may have found your forte.
5. Determine your conflict style
How do you approach conflict? Are you avoidant, do you compete to win, or do you seek opportunities for compromise?
Conflict styles can connect to certain work styles better than others. For example, those with an independent work style may welcome conflict because you don’t fear disagreement with the group, whereas those with a supportive work style may attempt to avoid conflict or resolve it as quickly as possible.
On the other hand, it’s difficult to pinpoint an idea-oriented individual’s conflict style without knowing more about their personality. You may lean independent and believe your ideas are perfect without others’ interference, or you may lean cooperative and love when others contribute their controversial ideas.
6. Take a personality or work style test
Often, the workday can distract you from self-reflection, making it difficult to pinpoint your work style. That’s where personality and work style tests come in.
These tests simulate scenarios and ask pointed questions about how you would act in those situations. Here are some common personality and work style tests:
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): The MBTI has gained a lot of traction in recent years. It determines one’s personality based on four sets of factors: introversion/extraversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. There are 16 personality possibilities, and where you fall can tell you a lot about your work style.
Revised NEO Personality Inventory: This personality test determines where you stand in relation to five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The acronym OCEAN can help you remember these traits. Where you stand often says a lot about how you work.
SHL Occupational Personality Questionnaire: This questionnaire helps bridge the gap between personality type and work style. It determines how one’s personality traits and behavior influence work performance. This is a great tool for determining whether someone is a fit for a job, though it shouldn’t stand alone.
While these tests can provide some insight, you shouldn’t assign a work style based solely on a personality test. Instead, take results with a grain of salt. They’re just one piece of the puzzle as you work to understand yourself both inside and outside of the office.
Empowering different work styles to collaborate
Working with a cross-functional team of diverse work styles can be tricky. People have different priorities, skills, and ways of operating.
However, this is also what makes diverse teams so impactful. They’re great at problem-solving and always bring creative ideas to the table. If you’re wondering how to get your team of different work styles to collaborate well, we map out a strategy below.
1. Identify everyone’s work styles
Identifying team members’ work styles requires careful observation. Notice signs such as the length of their emails, how long they spend on projects, and their communication style to categorize them using the work styles outlined above.
Another great way to identify work styles is to assign your team a project and watch how each person chats with their team members. It should quickly become apparent what gives each person energy and satisfaction.
2. Leverage the strengths of each team member
Nobody wants to do work they don’t enjoy and aren’t equipped to do. Now that you know your team members’ strengths, you can assign them the team roles that best fit their work style.
For example, a detail-oriented team member may struggle to brainstorm a new product idea. If so, try pairing them with an independent team member or an idea-oriented team member who can support them.
Likewise, a supportive or collaborative team member likely won’t excel at developing a project plan at their desk. Try to find a way for them to plan while engaging with the group, encouraging idea sharing, and helping to overcome roadblocks.
This isn’t to say that team members should only be assigned tasks that perfectly align with their work styles. New projects outside of one’s comfort zone present the opportunity to learn and grow. Rather, when challenged with something new, team members should always be equipped with the support they need to succeed.
3. Coach team members according to their work style
As we’ve already established, work style and personality go hand-in-hand. It should come as no surprise that one’s work style says a lot about how they prefer to learn. When coaching your team, remember to cater your efforts to their individual style.
For example, it’s important to approach coaching independent team members carefully. They’re hyper-sensitive to micromanagement, so you’ll want to treat them professionally and give them creative control.
Cooperative team members, on the other hand, respond very well to feedback. In fact, feedback and idea sharing are at the core of their work style. Even further, detail-oriented team members may need extensive and detailed feedback. Otherwise, they may return to your office with a long list of clarifying questions.
4. Represent different work styles on your team
While you likely won’t have every work style together in one place (unless you’re working with a very large team), it’s important to bring together as many styles as possible. This diversifies the strengths you have available and will make your team an unstoppable force.
Imagine a team filled entirely with analytical, detail-oriented team members. Not only would progress toward any goals move very slowly, but the team would likely struggle to come up with anything innovative or creative.
Likewise, a totally idea-oriented team would have no structure—nobody to write down the ideas, build them out, and create a step-by-step plan out of them.
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8 Main working styles
The Leader
These are the ones that take risks, spark energy, and stimulate others. They see the big picture and embrace the vision of the organization. The leaders create opportunities and make decisions, they don’t like repetition and want new challenges, and they don’t fixate on small details.
This group of people wants to win and see results using logic. They might come across as too authoritative while following thought leadership. If you are an entrepreneur, you probably belong to this category.
The Independent
This working style refers to the people who are flying solo. They are the master of their show and they find it challenging to cooperate with others. The independent workers do not want a lot of supervision and prefer doing things on their own, following their gut. This category is usually reserved for the creative ones. They are known for being efficient, productive, and disciplined.
The Operator
These are the people that everybody loves. The independent ones love to work on their own, but these guys here want to be surrounded by people and work within a group. They are diplomatic and professional communicators who thrive on feedback. They are cooperative, pragmatic, stable, and thorough.
The operators prefer to work on projects with others so that they can share the responsibility. Their style is strategic, collaborative, and organized. They don’t like ambiguity, sometimes they can get overly cautious, and they want to follow plans and structures. If you are someone who works in HR you belong in this category.
The Status Quo Defender
If you are a defender of the status quo it means that you want stability and order. You are not into risks, you are detail-oriented, you value tradition, and resist changes. The defenders would look before they leap and they are thoughtful.
However, this means that they want to avoid conflicts and be sensitive to criticism. When you work with the defenders, you should bear in mind that they are steady, patient, and precise. They prefer repetitive work and it takes them time to get close to new people.
The Altruist
If you are supportive, emotionally aware, and expressive, then you belong to this work style. The important thing about this group of people is to nurture good connections with their colleagues. They seek harmony and want to celebrate success with their team. We could say that they thrive on collaboration and not on competition.
They might get frustrated by stagnation, are overly cautious, and are slower when making decisions. They are natural team players who contribute to a teamwork culture.
The Analyst
These guys are deliberate, they anticipate problems and follow through. They want to collaborate with others, but they can also work quietly on their own. We could say that they are the stable force within a team. They can be quite straightforward but also sensitive to criticism. They are also uncomfortable working under pressure and want to have a communication plan they can follow.
The Outgoing
It’s hard not to love them. They are the soul of the party. They are charismatic, collaborative and want to help others, flexible, and quite diplomatic. As natural team players, they are known to be sympathetic and uninhibited. The problem is that they can be too talkative and they have limited attention to detail. If you are their manager, you should probably let them have their freedom of expression since they don’t respond well to rigid rules and formalities.
The Specialist
These are very loyal to authority. They are cautious and precise. The specialists are supportive and collaborative and might get obsessed with getting things done the right way. Being skeptical and factual is their thing. The specialists need to be recognized regularly and have as much information as possible so that they can make the right decisions.
How to balance work styles in a team
Once you figure out where you and your teammates belong, it is easy to use the information become aware of tendencies, and biases, and find ways to improve the collaboration within the team. When you put this knowledge to use, you’ll learn to value and respect others and what they bring to the table.
If you work alone, you will miss out on some things. That’s why different work styles yield better output. Our instincts would suggest finding people with similar work styles, but being surrounded by people with opposite perspectives would get you great results.
For instance, imagine having team members who all have a planned and analytical approach to finalizing projects without presenting new ideas and views. Who will come up with that big and bold idea that would bring innovation to the world? On the flip side, if everyone in the team is guided by their intuition without limitations, you will all be over budget and behind schedule most of the time.
The idea is to analyze the team members and to find out what is needed for each member to thrive. For example, the status quo defender would like to have an agenda and time before they make a decision, while the leader would need a whiteboard to brainstorm ideas. So, it would be a good idea to give the defenders of the status quo time to prepare for meetings or give the independents autonomy so that they can thrive.
Can one person have multiple work styles?
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Dave Winsborough said: The dynamics of interpersonal relationships depend on individuals’ personalities, not on hard skills or expertise. As employees, we can all get better at our jobs by taking different courses or coaching, but at the end of the day, we are who we are – reserved or talkative, laid back, or competitive.
Taking this into consideration, it is important to bear in mind and make a distinction between different personalities in a team. However, we are people and we don’t live in a black-and-white world. This means we don’t need to box ourselves into one specific work style.
It is okay if we are the leader at a certain point in time, but after a while to become the analyst. And remember: each style is unique and there is a tradeoff to every style. Let’s focus on what comes to us naturally and not overthink it.
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A working style is how you naturally operate in a team environment. It takes into account how you like to communicate, how you manage conflict and your collaboration preferences.
Much like the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator and Enneagram personality tests, working styles are often based on self-reported answers to a variety of questions. The difference with working styles is that they’re formulated specifically for a business or workplace type of application. There are a number of models available, including but not limited to the DiSC Model, Deloitte’s Business Chemistry and the Belbin Team Roles Model. Each model details its own roles and advises on both strengths and weaknesses.
We’ll focus on the DiSC model, first described by William Moulton Marston in his 1928 book Emotions of Normal People.
While there are four distinct quadrants, people can be a blend of two types. The two axes determine your focus orientation (task vs people) and your decision-making speed (fast vs moderate).
- D for Dominance: This type is direct and like results. They tend to be have strong opinions and are motivated by competition and success.
- i for Influence: This type is great at influencing and convincing others. They tend to be motivated by social recognition.
- S for Steadiness: This type is patient and enjoys helping others. They tend to be motivated by cooperation and team accomplishments.
- C for Conscientiousness: This type is analytical and cautious. They tend to be motivated by gaining knowledge and being able to demonstrate it.
Managing the different working styles
DiSC: How do I effectively manage the diverse styles within my team?
To answer that question, you must first determine each team member’s style.
Here’s a quick lesson on how to people read. Think about the person’s behaviors – their tendencies, tone of voice, expressions, word choice – and respond to these two questions.
- Question 1: What’s the person’s pace? Is the person more fast-paced & outspoken or more moderate pace & reflective?
- Question 2: How “agreeable” is the person? Is the person more questioning & skeptical or are they more warm and accepting?
Combine the answers to those 2 questions (see model below) to determine the individual’s DiSC tendencies.
Because the different collaborative styles have different communication and project goal values, knowing someone’s work style helps you manage the team better. You can watch out for behavioral tendencies and resolve conflict before it blows up.
This helpful guide goes in-depth on how to communicate, motivate and identify areas that might be lacking according to the DiSC model. If you pay for an assessment, you’ll likely receive additional details on each specific type as well as a map of each person. We all have a combination of the four working styles but most are strongest in one to two types.
5 Ways to improve collaboration based on working styles
Beyond understanding your team’s various styles and their preferred collaboration methods, there are a few other ways you can generally improve your team’s collaboration.
- Creating psychological safety within a team is when people feel safe to bring up ideas and concerns without a fear of retaliation or embarrassment. The ability to bring your authentic self into work and feel safe within a team carries a lot of weight.
- Establish workflows within the team for effective productivity and time optimization. When workflows are personalized, it recognizes that people work differently and shows that team leaders prioritize that.
- Use tools that facilitate collaboration because without the right tools, you can only get so far as a team. Business collaboration tools like Asana, Jira, Slack and Zoom are all ways to collaborate across different personality types. Some tools are better in certain areas than others and it’s often best to evaluate what works for your team and keep the number of tools at a minimum to avoid switching back and forth.
- Build a culture of recognition to strengthen morale and make people feel like they’re part of the team. Most people like to be recognized for their success and work, though preferences in the method do vary. Whether it’s private or public, be sure to understand how individuals like to be recognized. You don’t want to embarrass someone in front of an entire company if they’d prefer a smaller group recognition scenario.
- Understand how remote work might affect your collaboration efforts. Remote work comes with its own set of challenges and remote team management is no different. When you’re not able to just stop by a colleague’s desk anymore for a quick chat or create a meeting on the fly, you need to put in processes that do replicate the kind of collaboration that’s missing.
During remote work, building rapport with teammates will need to move from the casual desk visit to perhaps a scheduled virtual social hour. Use a variety of communication methods: email, video, phone and documents to appeal to different styles.
Taking action
Now that you’re a little more familiar with working and collaborative styles, it’s time to put the research to action. There are a number of free online assessments available as well as paid consulting companies who will come in and assist on a customized level.
Use the results from these tests to change up your communication methods and help others manage their work better. A team that plays to its strengths is more effective and productive.
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Merrill and Reid social styles model
by Jade Coleman
Get the most from your team by understanding social styles: the Merrill and Reid method
Can managerial, leadership and sales performance be predicted?
In the early 1960s, two industrial psychologists, David Merrill and Roger Reid, underwent a study exploring how people interact and communicate in social situations. The purpose of this study was to understand whether performance could be predicted for leadership, managerial and sales performance. Upon this, they discovered that people’s behaviour follows two continua, which they labelled: assertiveness and responsiveness.
Following this, four social styles were developed, each characterised by specific behaviours, attitudes, and communication patterns. This is referred to as the Merrill and Reid Social Styles Model.
The Merrill-Reid Social Styles
Analytical Style: This style is characterised by reserved and logical behaviour, a focus on facts and objective information, and a low tolerance for ambiguity.
Amiable Style: This style is characterised by friendly and cooperative behaviour, a focus on harmony and maintaining relationships, and a low need for control.
Driver Style: This style is characterised by assertive and direct behaviour, a focus on results and meeting goals, and a high need for control.
Expressive Style: This style is characterised by outgoing and enthusiastic behaviour, a focus on being creative and optimistic, and a need for self-expression.
These can be mapped in the Merill and Reid social styles model:
While all four approaches are at the disposal of each and every individual, there is a tendency for most of us to adopt one approach more than the others.
Understanding Merrill-Reid Social Personality Styles in the Workplace
Individuals tend to have a dominant social style but can also exhibit behaviours from other styles in different situations.
The dominant style can be described by:
- what the individual finds of interest
- what the individual feels is important
- their behaviour or actions
But why is this important in the workplace?
Collaboration is essential in business, tailoring your team depending on the objective, can support a successful outcome.
For example: an ideation session for a creative campaign.
Filling this meeting with employees that adopt an analytical and driver personality style, you’ll be sure to get a list of actions but it’s fair to say that creativity will be lacking. This type of meeting needs some expressive working styles.
Understanding and utilising different social personality styles is also important for motivation and mental wellbeing. Although we will display traits of all styles, being pushed out of our comfort zone too much can lead to burnout.
The Merrill-Reid Model and working with others
Understanding and recognising the different Merrill and Reid social styles can help individuals communicate more effectively and build better relationships with others.
Whilst an individual may dip in and out of all four approaches, most of us tend to favour one approach more than the other.
For using personal styles when working with others, it is important to consider their needs and styles. You also need to be aware of your own style and biases and try to understand and relate to those who may have styles that are different to yours.
By understanding your own personality style and that of others around you, will allow you to become more versatile. Most people’s social preferences are different to yours and tension happens because of differences and, even if we’re in our comfort zones, our behaviour might be creating tension for someone else.
The key to successful and fruitful relationships is to understand the preferences of the people you interact with and adjust your behaviour accordingly.
We’ve all heard the saying “treat others how you would like to be treated” but if your preferences and styles differ, this can cause a hostile environment. Therefore, the key to success in personal relationships is not to treat others how you would like to be treated but to treat others how they would like to be treated.
Merrill-Reid Social Styles Model: Our Agency Study IN 2023
At ClickThrough, we’ve developed our recruitment process to now include the completion of the Merrill and Reid social styles questionnaire, but why? To understand how individuals can fit within teams, pre-empt working preferences and to ensure we adapt our employee experience accordingly. In fact, we know the social style of everyone within the business.
Do our findings reflect job role?
Yes.
Many who have worked with us have complimented our friendly nature, welcoming and keen to form strong relationships, amiable is our most possessed style at 40%. This style dominates our sales and marketing team.
31% of employees are expressive, although a healthy number within each team, our social, design and conversion optimisation team came out top with more than half in these teams adopting this style.
When it comes to data, it was sure our technical SEO team came out strong as analytical. 23% of our agency is dominated by this style.
We have a low number of drivers within the agency but found that senior leaders are more likely to have this style.
Also people can combine different working styles. The examples 0f such combination one can see in the following chart:
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What is your productivity work style?
There has been a lot of discussion in the past few years about introverts and extroverts within the office setting and of course there has always been a conversation about right brained (visual and spacial thinkers who process information holistically) VS left brained thinkers (those who process information more analytically or sequentially). Needless to say, no single individual is simply one or the other modality, we are much more complex creatures than that. Science has also been adding to this notion of complexity through an increasing number of studies that look at our brain functions and cognitive processes.
There are a number of more robust models emerging that look at and categorize different types of work styles – or the individual way we process, organize, and complete tasks. It can be argued that the most successful organizations are the ones that can leverage the diversity of work style and provide spaces that support each of these individual types equally – providing an ecosystem of spaces if you will. Many people have weighed in and named these different productivity work styles but here are the 4 that leading consultant Carson Tate has outlined; Prioritizer, Planner, Arranger and Visualizer. And then let’s take it one step further…what kind of space can we envision that would support each individual work style.
PRIORITIZER
DATA DRIVEN > GOAL ORIENTED > LOGICAL
This work style represents a group that is very efficient and analytical in their approach. Consistency is key and this group is very focused on prioratizing to reach time sensitive goals. So, what kind of work space would work for this group? Generally, this group might prefer a logical, professional, and orderly space. Shared benching and open resident spaces would work with some visual privacy – functional, efficient comfortable and able to support their drive to completion.
PLANNER
ORGANIZED > ACTION ORIENTED > PROCESS DRIVEN
This productivity type is a list maker. Very practical and focused on creating detailed plans and making sequential lists to achieve a deadline. Once on track, this group is frustrated when plans change or derail. This group is energized and looking at the finish line. They need a private space to focus and a bonus would be technology based productivity tools that help them stay on task. A private space that can be leveraged during active, project focused times would help them stay on track.
ARRANGER
INTUITIVE > CONSENSUS ORIENTED > EXPRESSIVE
The hallmark of this productivity type is that they relish conversation and building relationships within the work environment. Highly supportive and expressive, this type prefers teamwork to individual work and enjoys face-time and sharing with colleagues. Lounge settings and meeting spaces that are informal, inviting, comfortable and collaborative would support this work style, accented by whiteboards to seamlessly share information and build mind share.
VISUALIZER
HOLISTIC > IDEA ORIENTED > CREATIVE
This is the “big picture” thinker. Always looking at a problem with a broader perspective, this productivity work style tends to work intuitively and synthesizes and integrates information into more strategic plans. When thinking about space to support this type of work style, one could look at resident desks that have comfortable lounge seating in close proximity. This setting allows people to bounce ideas off each other and share but then quickly return to a desk and focus on processing information.
Assessment: What’s Your Personal Productivity Style?
3 work styles—and how to pick one that works for you
By Leanna Lee
Everyone works differently. These working styles can help you better understand your own approach.
1. Work-life separation
Work-life balance or separation refers to the practice of dividing your day between work and personal tasks. It's a type of compartmentalization where you set boundaries to prevent one area of your life from bleeding into the other.
Work-life balance or separation isn't just about keeping your personal life out of your work life—it's also meant to protect your personal time, so you can be fully present in all aspects of your life as needed.
Pros of work-life balance
Straightforward and uncomplicated
Concentrates on fewer tasks at once
Naturally suited to setting clear boundaries
Cons of work-life balance
Often less flexible than other work styles
Can be harder to manage with evolving work environments or family demands
Here's how work-life separation might look for different types of workers.
In-office workers
You leave home, clock into work, stay at work and work on work, then clock out, go home, and manage your personal life. Doctor's appointments might happen during lunch breaks, but for the most part, you keep anything personal to before or after work.
Remote or hybrid workers
If you work from home some or all of the week, you might establish clear work boundaries, like setting up a private home office and sticking to the same routine. You take lunch and clock out at the same time each day, and your computer and/or work phone are turned off on weekends.
Freelancers or business owners
This will look different for everyone, but it often comes down to having a structured routine around work hours, location, and schedule. For example, you might work at your local coworking space five days a week, only take calls before 5 p.m., and not work at all on weekends.
How do I know work-life separation is for me?
If you prefer to keep your work and personal lives separate, and find it hard to stay focused on more than one thing at once, you might prefer this work style. Multi-tasking isn't for everyone.
Just remember: it's highly difficult, if not impossible, to completely separate your work and personal lives. So choosing this work style may require some compromises, especially if you have family at home.
2. Work-life integration
Work-life integration is the opposite of work-life separation: it means partly or fully combining your work and personal lives, so there's no clear separation. Instead of keeping both areas of your life as far from each other as possible, you manage both simultaneously.
This doesn't mean that there are no boundaries in place at all. In fact, setting boundaries can be even more important when you have to constantly multi-task.
Pros of work-life integration
More fluid and flexible
More variety in scheduling during workdays and workweeks
Ability to "fit in" stuff between work or work around personal needs
Cons of work-life integration
Harder to maintain boundaries between work and personal lives
Requires a certain level of multi-tasking
Here's how work-life integration might look for different types of workers.
In-office worker
You still clock in and out, but your workday might look slightly different. Doctor's appointments and errands like grocery shopping often happen during slow work times if you have a more flexible schedule. You may work from home occasionally or take work home at night.
Remote or hybrid worker
You bounce between work and home or home and a coworking space for some peace and variety. When you're home, you often work chores and errands into your day and plan projects and meetings around family events. You might also put in a few hours on weekends to balance things out.
Freelancer or business owner
You might take a meeting at 9 a.m., then head out to grocery shop before coming back in time to polish and send off a project before lunch. Afternoons could include cleaning or working out while you attend an industry webinar, or cooking dinner with your significant other before putting in a few hours of work before bed.
How do I know work-life integration is for me?
If you prefer to do tasks as they come up, and don't mind working from home or out of the office with interruptions to your workday, this work style might be a good fit. Integrators tend to like a more flexible approach, especially because it makes things like childcare, appointments, and other obligations easier to manage.
Again, this work style doesn't put either your work life or personal life first. It's more about when and how each of those activities and tasks happens throughout your day. An integrator, for example, can just as easily be a workaholic as someone who prefers to prioritize their home life.
3. Life-work balance
Life-work balance is a much newer concept, based on the idea that we need to re-examine our relationship to work. According to Remote's guide on the topic, life-work balance suggests that "work" isn't just tasks you do to earn income, but anything that requires your energy and time daily, like household tasks or caring for family members. It's meant to be a "comfortable balance between the things a person needs to do and the things they want to do."
During the height of COVID, millions of people realized that daily life tasks can take up a lot of time and energy. When they combined that with work, it led to a lot of stress—and that's putting it mildly. So people began finding ways to reduce that stress by prioritizing mental health or taking advantage of remote work to travel as digital nomads.
Pros of life-work balance
Encourages you to learn which daily activities are "need-to-do" vs. "want-to-do"
Shows you potential areas of stress in your life
May help you create healthier lifestyle habits
Cons of life-work balance
Not always accessible to people
May be easier for non-traditional workers or require big lifestyle changes
Here's how life-work balance might look for different types of workers.
In-office worker
You realize that work and home obligations leave you little time for yourself, so you invest in a professional cleaner or after-school program to help free up your time. At work, you negotiate a half day off each week, which allows you to explore your favorite hiking trails with a group of friends.
Remote or hybrid worker
After scoring a remote/hybrid job, you realize that you've been missing some quality family and hobby time. So you make plans to spend the summer working from the Caribbean with your partner and kids and carve out some alone time on the weekends to read fanfiction and body surf.
Freelancer or business owner
Because of the high costs of living in your area, you decide to use the concept of geoarbitrage—moving to a lower-cost area for a better quality of life— so your income can go further. This allows you to save for early retirement, afford better healthcare, and fulfill your dream of a three-month trip to India.
How do I know life-work balance is for me?
This choice is a bit more nuanced because it's really more about a shift in mindset. If you feel like you're struggling with burnout, constantly stressed, and always your last priority, this could be a good time to make some adjustments.
What is your work style?
Choosing a work style gets complicated when you think about how you prefer to work versus how you have to work, which aren't always the same thing. But again, we're talking about how you work best.
Think about:
How you've worked before. Did you gravitate toward a certain work style at previous jobs? What did your preferred schedule look like? Consider the times in your life when you felt the most productive and least stressed.
How you need to work right now. Your current work habits might not match your preferences, but they can provide important clues. What is and isn't working for you right now, and can you trace it back to a certain work style?
How you want to work in the future. Picture your ideal life. What does that look like? How do work, family, and other obligations fit in? And what about the stuff you want to do?
And remember: you don't have to pick one work style over another. I've spent years flip-flopping between being a separator and an integrator, and right now, I'd call my work style a hybrid of the two. Parts of my life, like my work hours and daily routine, are pretty structured with strong boundaries in place. But I still occasionally join Zoom calls on my lunch break, work on weekends, or randomly take a midweek day off. This works well for me, as I need both structure and flexibility to manage my health.
Ideally, I'd like to focus on life-work balance because that seems like the healthiest approach for me. But it may not be for you. There is no "right" choice—it's whatever works best for you.
My work style has evolved quite a bit in the last ten years, and I have no doubt yours will as well. After all, needs and health change, not to mention your job situation, and what served you during one life stage might not be the best fit later on. What's important is finding what works best for you now—that knowledge will help you make the adjustments you need to down the road.
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