"Is Your Boss A Director, Thinker, Relator, Or Socializer?" - Prof.M.S.Rao

“Treat the people the way you want to be treated” is the usual slogan. However, “Treat the people the way they should be treated” is the slogan coined by Dr.Tony Alessendra in his book, ‘The Platinum Rule’. He outlined four personality types to bring awareness among the people about their behaviour styles and for better professional and career compatibility. Knowing these four personality types helps you know about yourself as well as others. It promotes better relations with your bosses, peers and subordinates. It enhances your success rate and promotes your leadership skills and abilities. Overall, it helps in your personal, professional and social life.

We shall know these four personality types viz Directors, Thinkers, Socializers and Relators.

Directors:

Directors are daring and dashing, ruthless and reckless, aggressive and adamant and are filled with energy and enthusiasm. They love changes and challenges. They go by gut feelings and intuition. They don’t appreciate the weaknesses of others and they don’t like to be questioned. They are very brief, precise and are highly task oriented and love to hit bulls’ eye. They are fast workers and strive for excellence. The leaders who belong to this style are: Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Chengis Khan, Ashoka, Stalin, Hitler etc., Suitable careers for these people are administration, armed forces and security personnel.

Their weaknesses are that they don’t make too many friends. At the end of the day there is no one celebrate their success. They are loners.

Thinkers:

Thinkers have eye for detail. They follow rules and regulations thoroughly. They remain cool and composed every time. They pose too many questions. They are slow workers and strive for perfection. To name a few examples are Socrates, Plato, Aristotle etc., These people can excel as poets and philosophers and bureaucrats and accountants. Suitable careers for these people are research and analysis, consultancy, accountancy and bureaucratic organizations.

Their weakness is that they search for stones by leaving diamonds at home.

Socializers:

Socializers are fun loving people and move in groups. They love to be always at the center of attraction and love excitement. They are prestige conscious. They want to get noticed and recognized. Richard Branson, Vijay Mallya and Sobha De to name a few, fall in this style. Suitable careers for these people are film and entertainment industry and others.

Their weakness is that they are highly disorganized and lose focus.

Relators:

Relators are born to serve the people and value relations. They are good at emotional intelligence and teamwork. They sympathize and empathize with others and these people can get along well with all personality types. They are good listeners and emotional. They don’t like change and prefer to stick to routine activities. They are amicable and adjustable. Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela are few personalities who belong to this style. Suitable career for these people are politics, marketing, supply chain management and service-oriented sectors.

Their weakness is that they are ‘yes man’ and think that ‘others are always right’.

Handling Your Boss:

Handling Your Boss if he is a Director: Directors are ruthless taskmasters and impatient. They dislike to be questioned. If your boss happens to be a director, talk to the point and don't waste his time and listen attentively.

Handling Your Boss if he is a Thinker: Thinkers are detail oriented. They cannot be convinced with easily. Therefore, prepare all facts and figures, equip with all details and be ready to respond to all his queries.

Handling Your Boss if he is a Socializer: Socializers are fun loving people and like to be at the centre of attraction. They are outgoing and like to be appreciated and crave for recognition. Appreciate him and talk with him on his areas of interest.

Handling Your Boss if he is a Relator: Relators are good listeners and services oriented and are good team workers. However, they are not good decision makers. Therefore, listen attentively and provide service bent of mind and approach with alternative decisions on platter and request him to choose the best one. He would be very glad to choose as you have minimized his burden of making decision.
To enhance productivity and performance at the workplace it is essential to have opposite personality style preferably for better coordination. It reinforces the principle of magnetic theory, ‘like poles repel and unlike poles attract’. However you cannot choose your bosses, peers and subordinates. Therefore, mould yourself for interpersonal effectiveness.

Handling Your Subordinates:

You need to handle your subordinates carefully by knowing their personality style. Here is the way to handle your subordinates.

If your subordinate is a director, give them challenging roles and responsibilities so that they get excited to do tasks. Rise bar constantly and continuously. Never tell them ‘how to do’. Just tell them ‘what is to be done’. They would perform well and show you the quick results. Don’t micromanage them.

If your subordinate is a thinker, give them all information and instructions clearly and tell ‘how it can be done’. Don’t interfere frequently. Let them do at their own pace. Give them feedback.

If your subordinate is a socializer, you need to micromanage them as these people are disorganized. Show concern for people and praise in public and punish in private.

If your subordinate is a relator, don’t force them to make decisions. Be a good listener and show concern for people as these people are service oriented. They like to be in comfort zone and don’t like changes and challenges. Give them routine jobs.

Leadership Styles to Handle 4 Personality Styles:

To handle directors you need to demonstrate democratic and free reign innovative or eureka, level 5, charismatic, transactional, transformational, visionary, autocratic, great, and positional styles of leadership. To handle thinkers you need to demonstrate principle-centered, authentic, ethical, thought, functional, servant and democratic styles of leadership. To handle relators any kind of leadership style works. However, they appreciate situational, delegative, innovative, team, primal, bureaucratic, servant, and versatile styles of leadership. Finally to handle socializers, you need to display autocratic, innovative, delegative, team and situational styles of leadership to get the task executed successfully.

Spotting the Styles:

You can easily spot all these four personality types if you observe them closely and keenly. Directors are extrovert, walk alone and are task oriented. They are always in a hurry to do the things and have least concern for people. Thinkers are introvert, slow paced, enquire a lot and shoot several questions. They are highly organized and ideas oriented. Usually they don’t appreciate others easily. Relators are slow paced, good listeners, networkers, and help others and are emotional and appreciated by all. Finally socializers are extrovert, outgoing and always go in a group. They are fast paced and you can find them at the center of the group. They are party animals.

Conclusion:

There is no right or wrong personality style. Every style is unique and every individual has four personality styles but predominantly there is one style from where an individual operates. Therefore, don’t give up your natural style. What is essential is to know your style and develop compatibility with other styles by observing and molding your style to make things easier and smooth at the workplace.

If you know your predominant style, it will help you to get along well with others especially with your superiors, peers and subordinates at the workplace. It improves your soft skills and helps you to be successful personally, professionally and socially. In addition, you can choose right career based on your style.