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Leadership is about understanding yourself first and then exploring the differences of others and how you can best work together to achieve a shared goal.
Motivating Your Team: Managing Sensors and Intuitives
Leading a sales team requires understanding the nuances between sensing and intuitive personalities. Sensors thrive on details and concrete goals, while big-picture intuitives need vision and possibilities.
Consider using these tips to motivate both types.
Engaging the Sensing Types
For detail-oriented, realistic team members:
- Break large goals into specific, measurable tasks with deadlines. They want clarity.
- Show step-by-step procedures and provide hands-on training to build skills.
- Use data, facts, and historical examples to back up strategies. They distrust conjecture.
- Establish routines and consistent meeting cadences. Thrive on predictability.
- Provide frequent informal feedback on accomplishments and areas for improvement.
- Recognize their thorough, careful work publicly. Compliment skill mastery.
Inspiring the Intuitives
For abstract, innovative team members:
- Paint the big picture vision and explain how their role ladders up to it. Give them purpose.
- Allow flexibility in how they reach goals. Don’t constrain with rigid rules.
- Brainstorm possibilities and the future direction of initiatives. They think outside the box.
- Give minimal process guidelines and let them determine efficient workflows.
- Avoid micromanaging and let them operate autonomously. They need freedom.
- Praise novel ideas and creativity publicly. Encourage them to challenge assumptions.
- Have frequent one-on-one discussions on growth opportunities. Offer mentorship.
Finding Balance
Get to know your individual team members’ needs. Establish shared goals while accommodating different work styles. Combine concrete near-term tasks with a compelling vision. Recognize both mastery and imagination. Meet sensing motivations for stability and intuitive motivations for growth.
What are your best practices for managing sensors and intuitives? Please share your advice in the comments!
