Leadership Compass: Appreciating Diverse Learning Styles

LEADERSHIP COMPASS: APPRECIATING DIVERSE LEARNING STYLES Compass Direction Work Style Overuse/Taken to Excess Best Ways to Work with Style  Assertive, active, decisive  Can easily overlook process and  Present your case quickly,  Likes to determine course of events and comprehensive strategic planning when clearly, and with enthusiasm and be in control of professional relationship driven by need to act and decide confidence North  Enjoys challenges presented by difficult  Can get defensive, argue, try to “out expert”  Let them know they will be situations and people others involved – their pay off and their (Results)  Thinks in terms of “bottom line”  Can lose patience, pushes for decision role  Quick to act or decide; expresses before its time, avoids discussion  Focus on the “challenge” of the urgency for others to take action  Can be autocratic, want things their way, task  Perseveres, not stopped by hearing has difficulty being a team member  Provide them with plenty of “No,” probes and presses to get at  Sees things in terms of black and white, not autonomy hidden resistances much tolerance for ambiguity  Establish timelines and stick with  Likes variety, novelty, new projects  May go beyond limits, get impulsive, them  Comfortable being in front disregard practical issues  Give them positive, public  Values action-oriented phrases, “Do it  Not heedful of others’ feelings, may be recognition now!”, “I’ll do it”, “What’s the bottom perceived as cold  Use them to complete tasks that line?”  Has trouble relinquishing control - find it require motivation, persuasion, hard to delegate, “If you want something and initiative done right, do it yourself!”

 Understands how people need to  Can lose focus on goals when believes  Remember process, attention to receive information in order to act on it relationships or people’s needs are being what is happening with the  Integrates others input in determining compromised relationship between you direction of what’s happening  Has trouble saying “No” to requests  Justify your decisions around  Value-driven regarding aspects of  Internalizes difficulty and assumes blame values and ethics South professional life  Prone to disappointment when relationship  Appeal your relationship with this (Relationships)  Uses professional relationships to is seen as secondary to task person and his or her other accomplish tasks, interaction is a  Difficulty confronting or handling anger (own relationships primary way of getting things done or others’); may be manipulated by emotions  Listen hard and allow the  Supportive to colleagues and peers  Can over-compromise in order to avoid expression of feelings and  Willingness to trust others’ statements conflict intuition in logical arguments at face value  Immersed in the present or now; loses track  Be aware that this person may  Feeling-based, trusts own emotions and of time; may not take action or see long- have a hard time saying “NO” intuition, intuition regarded as “truth” range view and may be easily steamrolled  Receptive to other’s ideas, builds on  Can become too focused on the process, at  Provide plenty of positive ideas, team player, noncompetitive the expense of accomplishing goals reassurance and likeability  Able to focus on the present  Let the person know you like  Values words like “right” and “fair” them and appreciate them

Leadership Compass – Appreciating Diverse Work styles (Brown University), Resources taken from the Bonner Foundation, Adapted by RDH, 10/14/06, from: http://nationalserviceresources.org/filemanager/download/06_MultiState_Conf/I4LeadershipCompass-Participantshandout.doc LEADERSHIP COMPASS: APPRECIATING DIVERSE LEARNING STYLES Compass Direction Work Style Overuse/Taken to Excess Best Ways to Work with Style  Visionary who sees the big picture  Can put too much emphasis on vision at  Show appreciation and  Generative and creative thinker, able the expense of action or details enthusiasm for ideas East to think outside the box  Can lose focus on tasks  Listen and be patient during (Vision)  Very idea-oriented; focuses on future  Poor follow through on projects, can idea generation thought develop a reputation for lack of  Avoid criticizing or judging ideas  Makes decisions by standing in the dependability and attention to detail  Allow and support divergent future (insight/imagination)  Not time-bound, may lose track of time thinking  Insight into mission and purpose  Tends to be highly enthusiastic early on,  Provide a variety of tasks  Looks for overarching themes, ideas then burn out over the long haul  Provide help and supervision to  Adept at and enjoys problem solving  May lose interest in projects that do not support detail and project follow  Likes to experiment, explore have a comprehensive vision through  Appreciates a lot of information  May find self-frustrated and overwhelmed  Values words like “option,” when outcomes are not in line with vision “possibility,” “imagine”

 Understands what information is  Can be bogged down by information,  Allow plenty of time for needed to assist in decision making doing analysis at the expense of moving decision-making  Seen as practical, dependable and forward  Provide data-objective facts and thorough in task situations  Can become stubborn and entrenched in figures that a West can trust  Provides planning and resources, is position  Don’t be put off by critical “NO” helpful to others in these ways and  Can be indecisive, collect unnecessary statements West comes through for the team data, mired in details, “analysis paralysis”  Minimize the expression of (Process)  Moves carefully and follows  May appear cold, withdrawn, with respect emotion and use logic when procedures and guidelines to others’ working styles possible  Uses data analysis and logic to make  Tendency toward remaining on the  Appeal to tradition, a sense of decisions sidelines, watchfulness, observation history, and correct procedures.  Weighs all sides of an issue, balanced  Can become distanced  Introspective, self-analytical, critical  May be seen as insensitive to others’ thinker emotions or resistant to change  Skilled at finding fatal flaws in an idea or project  Maximizes existing resources - gets the most out of what has been done in the past  Values word like “objective” “analysis”

Leadership Compass – Appreciating Diverse Work styles (Brown University), Resources taken from the Bonner Foundation, Adapted by RDH, 10/14/06, from: http://nationalserviceresources.org/filemanager/download/06_MultiState_Conf/I4LeadershipCompass-Participantshandout.doc