In the third installment in a series focused on improving your relationship with your boss, this post will focus on the logic oriented personality. As previously stated the best way to improve your connection with your boss is to reflect on your own personality style and then determine where the connection points and challenges are. If you resonate with the title, you likely fit into the logic oriented personality style. Next step is to try to determine your boss’s personality style. Check out the Workplace Personality Styles link on the left sidebar menu for an overview. Now that you have both yourself and your boss categorized, here are some key points to improve your communication and overall relationship with your boss:
Logic Oriented to Action Oriented Boss
Your key connection point is you both appreciate direct concise communication. You don’t want things sugar coated, you just want to hear it the way it is, and your boss shares this preference. This could mean you have some very heated debates.
The key challenge for you when working with your boss is you want to continue to debate alternate perspectives looking for the optimal solution but your boss want to move to action. Make sure the debates are productive and don’t prolong the discussion as you will lose your bosses interest no matter how concise you keep each element. You also like to reflect on discussions internally before brainstorming, however your boss is very comfortable brainstorming and building on an idea, so make sure you push yourself to only require internal review time when absolutely necessary. Also remind your boss to get the best out of you, they need to give you time when you really need it.
Logic Oriented to People Oriented Boss
Your key connection point is in the belief that there is an ultimate solution. Your people oriented boss however will want to focus in on the people impact, how an issue relates to a broad people base and also look for input from multiple sources. You are more focused on the process and mechanics of a solution, so stay aware of the different perspectives because together you can come up with outstanding solutions as it will be evaluated from many different perspectives.
The key challenge for you when working with your boss will be around facts and logic versus intentions and intuition. Your boss is comfortable including intuition and emotional elements to a debate, and you would like to keep it strictly focused on facts and logic. Both are needed for holistic decisions, so keep this in mind to both be respectful of the different approaches.
Logic Oriented to Structure Oriented Boss
Your key connection point is about facts and logic. Both your personality styles like to have logical discussions based on facts not just intuition. The difference will come in the level of detail. Your preference is to focus just on the top level facts, but your boss is more comfortable with a deeper dive.
Your key challenge will be on moving from planning to action. Although you both like planning your structure oriented boss wants completion. You boss still wants a quality solution, but they want to move to acting on the plan before your comfort level is likely reached. Your believe in looking for the ultimate solution will keep you asking why or discussing alternate approaches well after your boss decided on a plan and moving to get it done.
Your relationship with your boss is much more complex than the key points listed above, however having an appreciation for some polarizing preferences can go a long way to improving the relationship. Once you actually start having the discussion about different preferences you can work out how to best appreciate and capitalize on the differences, rather than getting stuck in not understanding each other.
Lynn
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