I had a fascinating conversation last week with a client who had recently completed a COREMAP assessment. After discussing the outcomes of the assessment, we determined that his dominant personality was that of a Commander with highly developed Organizer traits as his secondary or back-up personality. This is a relatively common combination, but what made him atypical was that he also had highly developed Relater traits as well and Relater was his tertiary personality. When I told him about this, he was concerned that these different facets of the same person would create mental conflicts. He laughingly asked if I was suggesting that he had some kind of “multiple personality thingy” … was I saying that “someday, someone would write a book or make a movie about the multiple faces of ME?”
After we both laughed, I explained that each of us contains all four personality types and that, at various times, we all call upon each of those personalities to help us deal with situations. To explain how we use them, the following scenario was created —
Let’s assume that the team you lead at work has encountered a problem that must be solved.
• Your Relater tells your mind, “we have a problem that is causing disharmony … it must be resolved in order to restore harmony”. Your Relater identifies the problem.
•Your Organizer tells your mind, “here are the steps that must be taken to solve the problem and restore harmony”. It provides the details to the solution.
• Your Commander now instructs the team to take the steps necessary to solve the problem and the time frame in which they must be taken. In essence, the Commander says, “here’s what must be done, let’s do it!”
Rather than creating conflict, each facet of our personality steps up and does what it does best helping us solve problems and resolve conflict.
Very interesting . Could you say he had one foot on the gas & the other on the brake?
In many cases, Bob, your observation would be exactly right. Many leaders feel that they want to charge “full speed ahead” but simultaneously allow something (self doubt, self imposed limiting thoughts) to make them hold back and not give a 100% effort.
In this gentleman’s case, however, he was struggling with the concept of the different personality types working together to achieve a desired outcome. The scenario used was designed to help him see how the different parts of his unique personality worked together.
Thanks for the question!