How developing your self-awareness through Insights Discovery can transform your leadership style and inspire others…

Have you ever heard someone say this?  I manage a team, so why should I care what my Insights Discovery preferences are?  Surely people just need to take me as I am?!

This is the ‘like it or lump it’ approach to managing others and is outdated and devastating to businesses.

So are the following, classic scenarios in your business?

• You promote someone into a management role because they’ve been there a long time…
• A person has been brilliant at their job – whether as an engineer or administrator and then you reckon they’ll be ace managing a team of people…
• In an interview, someone talks an awesome story about teamwork, motivating and inspiring others and then all they manage to achieve in their new management role is to upset and demotivate their team…
• You appoint a manager from somewhere else, with glowing references, stating ‘they got the job done, achieved great results’ and then they do the same in your business, but alienate people and get the job done without utilising the talents amongst the team members..

Sound familiar?  These are all very common and classic mistakes in businesses.  Even Managing Directors of SMEs who have developed their businesses from a single idea in their home office, often find themselves in management and leadership roles as their business grows, recognising that they are ill-equipped to manage and have little understanding of the differences of people, let alone themselves.

Bring in Insights Discovery, the stepping stone into a journey of self-awareness – for you, your leadership and your team – the possibilities are endless.

So how can Insights Discovery help you as a manager?  The first answer is quite simple – how can you do without it?  How on earth will you be able to manage and inspire others if you first don’t understand yourself?

As well as learning about your strengths and weaknesses, communication preferences and management style, your profile will highlight how you are perceived by others, particularly those who are different to you.  You may think that being direct, to the point and sometimes brutally honest is the best and only way to manage other people because that is the way you like it.  This style is predominantly High Fiery red.

Consider those with a high Earth Green preference – they would like to be asked how they feel, have all ideas in the team considered and have a democratic decision taken.

After listening to Gordon Ramsay’s great interview on the High Performance podcast, his unique style is high Fiery Red and Cool Blue – often shouting and swearing!  I then reflected on the chef Jamie Oliver – a very different style of high Sunshine Yellow and Earth Green.  Jamie has bowls of pasta, sharing dishes and friends/family gathered around a table in a mixture of chaos and joy.  Both styles are authentic to them and in leadership terms, are very different.

So how can these reflections help you?

“Communication needs to happen on the recipient’s terms” – Thomas Erickson (Surrounded by Idiots)

If you communicate with your team in just one way, you’ll only be likely to inspire and motivate people who are similar to you, you’ll aggravate the rest and not benefit from a range of approaches just because you haven’t engaged and connected appropriately with everyone in the team.  Diverse, inspired and motivated teams are more creative, effective and productive and this starts with the manager having self-awareness, encouraging feedback, enabling team members to develop self-awareness, recognising their strengths and creating a culture where everyone can be the best version of themselves.

So how do the colour energies show up in leadership and where do you recognise yourself in these…?

Remember, you are a combination of all four of these preferences.  Where are your strengths and challenges?  What do you need to do more or less of?

If we had just been taught a new recipe by either Gordon or Jamie and wanted to perfect it for some important visitors, you’d practice it with your friends and family, over and over!  The same applies to learning new leadership behaviours.  Once you have an Insights Discovery profile you will be clear on the areas you need to work on and be able to focus on these, practising until they become effortless.  Your team and colleagues will find you more inspiring and engaging and you’ll not only become a better manager, you’ll also enable others to be the best version of themselves.

Make the choice NOT to be one of those terrible managers we mentioned at the start.

As Marianne Williamson states, “as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same”.  Isn’t that what you’d like to be remembered for as a great leader and inspirer of others…

Fancy a chat about Insights Discovery and Leadership Development programmes, please do get in touch