How to Manage Introverted Employees Small Business

| Managing Employees

| Employees

Leading your small-business staff means communicating with and navigating through different types of complex personalities. Identifying the types of personalities who keep your company running is the first step. Then comes the process of managing those distinctive employees. You can usually identify introverted employees by their tendency to think first. Use their introverted characteristics as guides for managing them and promoting their success.

1 Approach introverted employees as the deep thinkers they are. Give an introvert time to digest information. Slow down, suggests the American Management Association, and wait for their reasoned responses.

2 Communicate with introvert employees in writing. Send important information by email or handwritten memos to give these thinkers time to absorb information and form decisions, recommends Portfolio.com.

3 Give introverted employees assignments they can work on independently. Explain that they are accountable to you for the process and completion of the project, advises Gaebler.com.

4 Assign introverts to teams with a balance of extroverts. Ask introverts to work with other employees with whom they can relate. Let the extroverts make presentations.

5 Ask introverts to provide regular updates. Recognize that introverts live in their heads and may forget to keep you in their mental loop.

Warnings Avoid labeling your employees as one type or another. Personality types are complex combinations of preferences for different ways of perceiving and interacting with the world.

Tips Find out your personality type. Learn how your type best communicates with other types.

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