My wife plans every minute of a vacation. I don't.
"Hey, honey, I've got a vacation for us."
"Great. What are we doing on day one?"
"We're going."
"And when we get there?"
"We're going."
She loves having the whole trip planned out. I love that we're going. Neither of us is wrong. We're wired differently, and after a lot of years together we've learned to have fun with it.
Parties are the same. She loves people, but she loves them in smaller groups. I'd be happy with 200 people at our house for a Christmas party. When we go to a big event together, she'll point me at the crowd and say, "Go do your thing, would you?" By nine o'clock she's ready to go home.
Your team works the same way. The trouble is that most leaders lead everyone the way they would want to be led.
The golden rule fails at work
"Treat people the way you want to be treated" sounds right. At work, it quietly turns into leading everyone as if they were you.
If you love a quick hallway conversation, you give feedback in the hallway. If you want the headline, you send one-line emails. If you move fast, you announce a change on Monday that starts on Tuesday. For the people who are wired like you, that works. For everyone else, the message lands wrong, and you decide they have an attitude problem.
They don't have an attitude problem. You have a delivery problem.
It starts in hiring. So many companies hire people based on whether they'll be a good fit with the boss. Then the boss leads everyone the same way, and anyone who isn't a copy of the boss struggles. Hire for the role. Then lead the person you actually hired.
Four drives, four different needs
Every person has four drives at different strengths: Dominance, Extraversion, Patience and Formality. Each one changes what a person needs from a leader.
- Dominance. People with more of it want the goal and the authority to own how they get there. People with less want to be asked for their view, because they often won't offer it unless you ask.
- Extraversion. People with more of it need interaction to do their best work. When I walk around the office talking to people, it's strategic. It recharges me for the next hour of work. Within reason: if it lasts 20 minutes every hour, that's a different conversation. People with less extraversion need focus time, notice before meetings and written follow-up.
- Patience. People with less of it want change yesterday. People with more of it want the reason behind a change and time to adjust. When one says "let's go" and the other says "let's think this through," neither one is being difficult.
- Formality. How do you write an email to someone with low formality? Short, simple, bullet points. Someone with high formality? Paragraphs, with the detail and the reasons.
None of this lowers the bar. Everyone is held to the same standard.
Hold everyone to the same standard. Change how you deliver it.
Here's what one piece of feedback looks like, delivered four ways.
Provide the context, criteria and written next steps.
Start with the outcome and concise bullet points.
Talk through the work and leave room for questions.
Make the goal clear, then allow room to work.
You can try the other scenarios, including running a meeting and leading a change, on our Drives page.
Coaching the people who are nothing like you
On stage I do live readbacks, where I read a few volunteers' results in front of the room. The same patterns show up again and again, and each one has a simple fix.
The idea machine. Some owners throw out a million ideas a week. Their team can't tell which ones are ideas and which ones are assignments, so the next meeting starts with, "What project? I didn't know we were working on a project." The fix isn't fewer ideas. Have someone take great notes, and end every meeting with a recap of who is taking what.
The yes person. People with high extraversion want everyone around them happy, so it's hard for them to say no. They say yes to ten requests, get home and wonder what they just did. The fix is a simple system for follow-ups, and a vision clear enough that saying no gets easier.
The charmer who avoids accountability. Some people turn up the fun so they never have to hold anyone to a standard. It looks like extra energy. It's really running from the hard conversation. The fix is a standard that does that job for them.
None of these people are doing anything wrong. They're doing what comes naturally. Your job as their leader is to see it and coach to it.
Feedback that lands
The best coaching I ever got took 20 seconds a day. My extraversion is very high, and I was told to lower it for 20 seconds when I needed to have a tough conversation. That's long enough to say the hard thing instead of joking my way around it.
The second half of that advice matters just as much. Hold people accountable to the standard, so you're blaming the standard and not yourself. When the standard is clear and written down, you aren't the bad guy. You're the person helping them meet it.
Then deliver it the way they need it. Direct and brief for some people. Warm and in person for others. Specific and in writing for people who want detail. With time to think for people who need it. The standard doesn't move. The delivery does.
Write it the way they read it
Email is where most of this goes wrong, because nobody sees the other person's face when the message lands. Here's the same update written twice.
For someone who wants the headline:
- Client call moved to Thursday, 2 PM.
- Bring the third-quarter numbers.
- Goal: a decision on the renewal.
For someone who wants the detail:
"The client asked to move our call to Thursday at 2 PM, because their finance lead is out on Wednesday. Please bring the third-quarter numbers, including the two accounts we talked about last week. The goal of the call is a decision on the renewal, so it would help to have the contract terms with you as well."
Same facts. Send the first one to the second person, and they'll feel like you left things out. Send the second one to the first person, and they'll stop reading halfway through. Neither one is wrong. They just read differently.
What changes when you lead this way
Once you know how each person is wired, a lot of hard leadership moments get easier.
You know how to write their annual review so they actually hear it. You know which words to use if you ever have to write someone up. You know how to tell someone about a promotion in a way that makes them feel it. You know who needs a heads-up on Friday about a change on Monday.
And people stay. Not because they have to, but because they want to. They feel led, not managed. That's the whole idea behind our Executive Coaching.
Start with one person
Pick one person who reports to you, ideally the one you understand least. This week, write down four things:
- How do they like information: bullet points or paragraphs?
- How do they take feedback best: in the moment, or with time to think?
- What recharges them, and what drains them?
- What do they need from me that they aren't getting?
If you don't know an answer, ask them. Then change one thing about how you lead that person, and watch what happens.
If you want to start with yourself, take the free six-minute assessment. There are no right or wrong answers, and I'll walk you through your results myself. If you missed last week's post on the four drives, start here.
None of these are good or bad. They are information. Use it.
Questions readers ask
Learn how each person is wired: how much influence they want, how much interaction they need, how fast they like to move and how much structure they want. Keep the same standard for everyone, and change how you deliver it.
Everyone is held to the same standard. What changes is the delivery: in writing or in person, the headline or the detail, now or with time to think. That is not favoritism. It is communication that lands.
Ask them how they like information and feedback, and watch what recharges and drains them. A behavioral assessment takes the guessing out of it.
Yes. Remote work makes it more important, because more of your leadership happens in writing. Bullet points for some people, paragraphs for others.
Mike McCloskey
Founder and CEO of HumanLytics Team. Helping leaders turn people data into a people plan.
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