How to Manage a Team of Diverse – or Conflicting – Personalities

If you’ve just been promoted into management, or if you aspire to move into management, the number one skill you’ll need to master in order to succeed will be helping people with different — even conflicting — personalities, work as a team.

This isn’t easy. When two people with incompatible personalities work together, fireworks often can result. (If the two individuals are mature and professional, however, they’ll probably be able to co-exist somewhat amicably.)

But as manager you more than likely will come across drama queens, hotheads, the overly sensitives, the bullies, the victims, the entitleds, and so on.

And it will be your job to ensure that a) you get along reasonably well with this diverse bunch and b) your team members will get along reasonably well with each other.

How to do this? Read below for some tips:

  • Aim to play to your team members’ strengths. For example, if some members are more outgoing, allow them to speak freely at team meetings. Don’t forget to allow your quieter team members the chance to respond either at the meeting or more privately via an e-mail.
  • Don’t forget to try team building exercises. One of the reason diverse personalities sometimes get into conflicts is because they haven’t been “forced” to experience the other person’s perspective, or they haven’t really had to “work together” as a team. Team building exercises can help conflicting personalities “come together.”
  • Perhaps most importantly you need to take a proactive approach from the get-go and set a tone of cooperation, collaboration and compromise within your team. Conflict that undermines the team and/or the work environment just won’t be tolerated, is your new motto. Should you notice conflict cropping up, encourage team members to seek common ground, to work with each other to come to a solution with which all will be comfortable. By helping your team members work together to come to a solution to their differences and to see the others’ perspective, you’ll end up having a stronger team as a result.

Are you looking to add additional team members at your Inland Empire company? Then come to Arrow Staffing. We have more than 40 years’ experience helping Riverside and San Bernardino county companies find great workers for temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire assignments. We look forward to hearing from you!

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