MLM Coaching and Personality Types
March 9th, 2010 | by Chris |Coaching is not an easy task and takes a lot of practice and experience in order to master that skill. But whether we like it or not is necessary an essential to the success of your business. A wise thing to do is to group people to various categories depending on their personalities and then treat them an communicate with them accordingly in order to have the best results.
But to how many categories you can group people acording to their peronality?
There are four basic type of personalities that derive from the work of ancient Greeks and that is the the sanguine type, the choleric, the melancholic and the phlegmatic. Of course based on other theories you can have more groups but on a first level the four types are doing a very good job describing the idiosyncracies of people you come in contact with and can guide you well on how to communicate with them. What you need is to study them and apply the theory in order to get results in building your multilevel marketing business.
MLM Coaching is No Walk in the Park When Dealing With Personalities by Peter L Bennett
If you thought for a fleeting moment that MLM coaching was going to be easy. Think again.
If you have very little experience dealing with a multitude of personalities that may not always fall in line with yours, the time to learn is now. The sooner you are able to identify and understand a mixture of personalities, the sooner your abilities to maximize results will occur.
Personalities are like arm pits… we all have them. They are all unique in one way shape or form.
Last night was spent tossing and turning with a thought running around in my head about how people do different things based on their personality. Hold on to your hat. It is a cop out. It is like oh, gee, I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. It is just me, it is my personality.
Here’s the deal. We all have choices and the choices we make defines us! We can illuminate any personality we choose too. We can be whoever we want to be. We can even put different personality hats on whenever the need arises.
There are 4 dominant personalities. They are Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy and Phlegmatic.
Sanguine
These are the fun loving people. They are the popular ones who are adventurous, talkative, expressive, have a great sense of humour and can’t help but be the life of the party. They are often considered creative and great at making initial contacts.
Choleric
Ok. In the most part, this is me.
They are risk takers who love a challenge. A choleric tends to be a fast thinker who is loyal, likes to take charge and enjoys leadership roles. Motivating people to action, instructing, and controlling job activities are part and parcel.
Melancholy
They are the searchers of perfection. These people are the thinkers. They tend to be analytical, purposeful, sensitive, serious and well organized.
Love details, love numbers and generally confine themselves to a smaller group of friends.
Phlegmatic
Phlegmatic people can be described as someone who is calm, soft and cool, friendly, well balanced, good listeners and usually have many friends.
Usually indecisive people but loyal support people within a team.
These are the natural personalities that are programmed into a person when he or she is born, true.
And yes, this personality stays with you for your entire life.
However, if you are prepared to pay the price you can learn to develop the other personality types as well. It is called a learned personality. It requires a conscious effort to obtain rather than something that one has been given naturally. It does not come easily but then again, nor does success.
Your personality (in fact YOU) is moulded by your values, your paradigms, your beliefs; your desires and your inner soul with each component playing a significant role in your learned personality. You are the conductor of your own orchestra and the tunes that are played come from the decisions you have made and not from something you have no control over.
As a former golf professional, my thoughts and attitudes formulated an aggressive and competitive personality that was mentally prepared for a sometimes not so subtle risk and reward strategy.
The key was to openly accept the consequences of my actions and be aware that the fallout if any or bad results had been accepted as part of who I am. But that was golf.
As a senior coach for sporting teams, the consequences of my thoughts and actions were no longer the same. There were other people involved.
Photo by Patrick Emerson
Thank goodness for learned personalities!
Sponsors, team members, investors and supporters were just a few of the other bodies that had vested interests in the outcome. I was no longer alone. The impact of decisions and actions are now felt on a much larger scale.
On one hand you may want to risk the entire kitchen sink by trying to hit a golf ball 300 yards over water to an island green which would be fine if that was your personality! Alternatively, personal glory may well take a back seat to the needs of your “team” members. It depends on what matters the most.
The real glory now comes from team results. Coaches live and die by them! But that’s sport!
Remember. There is no “I” in the word team!
One of the invaluable skills when coaching a team is to learn, understand and appreciate the incredible and complex mix of personalities that you may be coaching. The role of the coach is to provide an environment whereby every single individual person is given the chance to be the absolute best they can.
The synergy and energy created by bringing the best out of individuals who are driven by team results above their own is simply explosive.
There is a great book out there for leaders looking to understand personalities and it’s called Personality Plus by Florence Littauer. Those who really have a genuine desire to know more about themselves and improve upon their personal and professional lives will get great value out of this best seller. It highlights the aspect of how personality plays its part in every human-to-human interaction.
When you fully understand your own strengths and weaknesses along with the personalities of those around you, you will begin to realise that they are all different with varying wants and needs.
They have a wide range of “hot buttons” and things that motivate them so it will come as no surprise that treating all people the same is fraught with danger.
If the world was full of stereo typed personalities it would be a boring existence to say the least!
Coaching is either a passion you enjoy or a reluctant role you hope will lead to bigger and better things. MLM Coaching is like all group coaching enviroments where your ability to deal with different personalities will either make you or break you.
If you want to learn more from some of the leading coaches in this industry, pop over and say hello at MLM Stroke Of Fortune as we continue to develop the leaders of tomorrow.
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One Response to “MLM Coaching and Personality Types”
By Ryan on Mar 13, 2010 | Reply
This is part of the deal of being an MLM coach.
How to work with different personalities? Be a listener. By listening to a person you can effectively figure their personality type, which enables you to interact with them more effectively.
Great post.