Influence

My personal work style is a middle I - Influence. Influence as listed on DISC Personality Test web site states, "Optimistic and Outgoing. I's are "people people" who like participating on teams, sharing ideas, and energizing entertaining others. I think this is fairly accurate. I supervise about 20 team members. When I was first promoted as a supervisor about 4 years ago things seemed to run smoothly. Then one day everyone had problems. None of the team members were telling me what their problem was. I talked to several of the team members trying to help them solve the issues they felt were there, however, nothing seemed to come of it. The team members were reluctant to share with me. Since then I have changed my management style. I have the groups break down into 5 people and we call them focus group. In this group a team member leads the meeting. They talk about the problems in the department and then focus on what "They" can do about it. When I first began this type of communication it was difficult because they wanted to shift the blame to me. For example it was my fault that the on-air personalities did not give the reception team members their show prep. I began to slowly and subtly ask, "What can WE do about it." It took a few team members many tries before they began to line up their thinking in terms of being proactive. Instead of it being my fault for not getting the material to them it became their fault and something they could change. I had many other challenging duties. Today, my team is fairly effective in thinking proactively. I used to think this type of thinking came naturally but for some people it does not. I am learning how to teach other to think in terms of proactive rather than reactive.