Lead with all your colours

I’m not a big fan of psychometric testing, but there is one personality profiling tool I use when coaching leadership teams in construction because it draws out a particular finding that sparks very useful dialogue.

It analyses the social style a person uses most in work, which prompts new thinking about how that style can be modified to make it more effective.

I apply it to teams, so that the teams can get a reading on the balance of social styles at play amongst them. As an exercise, it’s quick, visual and revealing.

It classes people by colour: Red, Yellow, Green or Blue.

What colour are you?

You can see in the illustration by Gary Nightingale that it’s a simple 2 x 2 matrix with axes resembling the crosshairs of a rifle scope or theodolite.

The vertical axis concerns what a person’s primary focus is in a work setting, and asks them to position themselves somewhere on a spectrum with ‘Task’ at one end and ‘Emotion’ at the other.

The horizontal axis is communication styles, and the choice of position here is between ‘Ask’ at one end and ‘Tell’ at the other.

This gives us four quadrants. Red is labelled ‘Driver’, yellow is ‘Expressive’, green is ‘Amiable’, and blue is ‘Analytical’.

Take your places

I actually draw this matrix on the floor as I explain it.

I ask team members to think about whether they mostly ask others or tell them, and whether they’re more focused on tasks or emotions. Then I ask people to stand in the quadrant that best reflects their style at work.

When everyone’s in position, we talk about what it says about the balance of the team’s social styles.

Up to this point, we rely on unassisted self-awareness, but after this, I invite participants to complete a five-minute questionnaire to help them think a little more deeply about their styles. Then I ask them to position themselves in the matrix again, according to their deeper consideration.

Construction people are Red and Blue

I’ve done this repeatedly with UK construction leadership teams, and the overwhelming majority of participants position themselves above the horizontal line, suggesting an individual and collective focus on Task.

This isn’t surprising, given that construction is about projects, and delivering a project is a huge and difficult task.

Roughly the same number of people put themselves in the Red and Blue quadrants, suggesting that construction leaders tend to be Drivers and Analyticals in equal measure.

As we might expect of Drivers, those who head for the Red quadrant are the more forceful and dominant personalities, to whom giving orders comes naturally, and who can be counted on to take charge in an emergency.

Blue Analyticals are comparatively relaxed about getting their way, being more interested in analysing task-related problems and doing tasks themselves.

Cold and unforgiving

What I take from this is that the balance of the social styles of the teams I’ve run the analysis on is tilted strongly away from the Emotional domain, and its Expressive (Yellow) and Amiable (Green) quadrants.

I see this as an imbalance, because we’re all humans, and humans are emotional beings.

The preponderance of Task in a team’s social style leaves out things that are important for effective teamwork and morale.

A successful team needs Expressive energy to persuade, motivate and communicate, and it needs Amiability, the quadrant in which people listen to, empathise with and nurture each other.

Viewed from this perspective, the Task domain is a rather cold and unforgiving place.

In discussions with participants, they recognise that this puts people under stress.

They also recognise the effects of this stress, including staff attrition, in-group conflict, conflict with suppliers and the client’s team, burn-out and need for more HR interventions. I am also mindful of The Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting!

Being more ourselves

Interestingly, when the Red and Blue leaders look back at their questionnaires, they see that they do have Yellow and Green in their make-up, even if these colours don’t dominate at work.

That means we have those skills and sensitivities in us. Somehow, we need to try taking our Yellow and Green traits out for a spin.

But how?

Fortunately, there is a practical way to do this without faking friendliness and concern.

Try a bit of coaching

I’m willing to bet that the people in the team you lead know what they need to do to move the project forward without you telling them what to do and how to do it all the time and constantly driving them on.

You could test that. You could ask them, “If I wasn’t here, what would you do tomorrow and the next day?”

Chances are it would be the correct thing, because you have established purpose and direction. And many of your people have done all this before.

That fact – that your people already know what they need to do – opens up the possibility of you shifting to a coaching style of management.

The power of conversation

With it, you set the challenging goals your team must reach, and then you start an ongoing conversation with them about how they propose to play their part.

This conversation involves you mostly asking questions and listening to them so they can think more effectively about what they need to do.

You’re not monitoring and shaping their thinking, you’re enabling them do their own thinking.

This puts them in charge of fulfilling their own accountabilities, and they grow in capability and confidence as a result.

People naturally prefer this because it gives them autonomy and respect. Nobody likes being ordered around and monitored.

So, in this new space you’ve created, green and yellow shoots of positive emotion will appear. Trust, respect, confidence, engagement and enthusiasm – all important emotions – take root and grow.

The good news is, making things better for your people may only involve this slight yellow-green shift in your work social style.

• I’ve written a short book called Coach for Results about how to cultivate a coaching style of management for construction leaders. You can buy it on Amazon here. Please email me (dave@dsabuilding.co.uk) and let me know how you get on with it.