Well-being has become a priority for organizational leaders and HR experts. It’s at the top of Deloitte’s Five workforce trends to watch in 2021 and it’s easy to see why. Home working means there’s a massive overlap between personal life and work life. Everyone’s susceptible to more (or different) stresses than usual, and each person has unique circumstances. Some have few opportunities to switch off and recharge fully.
At Forbes, Melissa Daimler, executive coach, discusses Three Leadership Skill Shifts For 2021 and Beyond. She writes that leaders need to move their skills from communication to empathy, from emotional intelligence to emotional agility and from time management to context management.
If we look at this in MBTI® terms, it’s a move toward the Feeling preference—understanding other people’s situations and values. It’s a shift away from the objective and toward the subjective. A good starting point is to revisit the Thinking-Feeling process in your own MBTI profile. Leaders can see if they naturally prefer Thinking or Feeling and understand exactly how they tend to make decisions.
Next is to learn more about the Feeling preference. Then find ways to flex behavior and use it—that is, learn how to communicate in Feeling terms. By getting to know how to talk to and listen to people in this way, leaders are better equipped to build relationships with employees.
