Effective leadership requires solid Communication. But it isn’t always cut and dried — especially when you’ve got a  variety of Personality Types on your team. 

It takes time to understand people and how they learn and develop. But with a little extra effort and attention, you can adapt your leadership and communication style to fit the needs of your team.

Here, Kenia Stubblefield, an 11-year veteran of retail management and general manager of retail shop Forth & Nomad shares her tried-and-true tips. 

1.  Ask upfront to understand 

Kenia focuses on figuring out how to speak to team members as soon as they start the job. 

“It’s important to me that I’m sitting down with each one of my employees and understanding where they’re going,  where they’ve come from, and what their love language is,” she says. “How do they like to be spoken to? There are a few people who enjoy the fluffer words. There are a few that want me to give it to them straight. So understanding what they want and how I can accommodate that is crucial.” 

2.  Tailor your methods  

Kenia says she learned the hard way that different people and personalities require different methods of communication. 

“It was like, okay. I’m communicating with you, but it’s not resonating. So maybe you don’t understand this type of communication. Let me try this type. And it was just learning how to communicate on different levels. Not everybody’s a fluffer, not everybody likes things that are spot on. Everybody’s different.”

These are a few good resources that can help you identify and communicate effectively with the different types of personalities within your own organization:

• How to successfully communicate with different personalities, American Society of Administrative Professionals
• Managing different personalities, Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM)
• How to communicate with different personalities in the workplace, HJR Global
• The four communication styles you’ll find in the workplace, Indeed

3. Get feedback

Successful communication with any person takes practice and adaptation. Once you’re tried different methods, ask for feedback on what they like and how you can improve. 

“Being able to receive and give feedback is important,” Kenia says. “It’s how you create a team. It’s how you grow your team. And it’s how you become a better manager. I ask for feedback on a consistent basis. I still have so much growing to do.”

Want to up your team’s communication game? Use the all-in-one Homebase app to message groups and individual team members, solicit shift feedback, and more. 

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