What is Your Working Style? The 4 Working Styles to Know

What are working styles? And which working style are mine? There are generally a range of personalities and working styles in any business. This amount of diversity can sometimes lead to miscommunication or conflict, but it most often leads to the creation of innovative and successful solutions.

You may improve as a team member and collaborator by learning more about different sorts of work styles and identifying your own method.

What are working styles?

Your preferred method of organizing and completing tasks is known as your work style. There are many distinct sorts of workers in a single workplace, all of whom flourish in different circumstances. You can identify the positions and responsibilities in which you thrive by identifying your working style, allowing you to optimize your productivity and, as a result, your success. Understanding your own biases and inclinations is also beneficial since it helps you to work around them in specific situations.

Why are working styles important?

Knowing your work style may help you identify the sort of job and work environment that is ideal for you, in addition to making you a more successful team member. A profession that involves a lot of communication, cooperation, and planning, for example, necessitates a very unique work style. Understanding your ideal work style will help you locate jobs where you can be both successful and pleased.

Additionally, recognizing your coworkers' working styles may benefit the entire business since it allows you to increase cooperation by forming varied teams that combine the benefits of each type. As a consequence, you'll be able to provide superior results and solutions.

Which working styles are there?

Here are the four key working styles in the workplace.

Logical

Because they can assess an issue and confront it head-on, people with this work style are frequently referred to as drives or doers. People with this work style are usually data-driven and like a good challenge.

Their linear thinking helps them to devote a great deal of attention to their objectives and get things done. Because of their intense focus, these individuals may fail to express their actions or miss the necessity of preparation.

Detail-oriented

Those with this working style are sequential, strategic, structured, and very detail-oriented, and are sometimes referred to as guardians or learners. These qualities are crucial in every team because they provide a feeling of order and consistency.

Individuals with this work style are typically very pragmatic, which means they avoid taking chances and approach issues slowly and carefully. Many people with this work style chose engineering as a career because they enjoy investigating and comprehending problems in all of their complexities.

Supportive

Some folks have a more expressive and supportive work style that is more emotionally focused. Integrators and lovers are terms used to describe people who establish connections and bring teams together to operate in harmony. In other words, they generally place a premium on teamwork.

They are sensitive to the sentiments of others around them, which enables them to effectively promote team discussions and comprehend the actual context of a situation.

Idea-oriented

Individuals with this working style are good in creating a vision and inspiring others to believe in it. They are sometimes referred to as pioneers, leaders, or big-picture thinkers. These employees thrive on the never-ending risks and opportunities, which makes them a fantastic source of energy. These innovators excel at converting challenges into opportunities, but they can get so focused on the big picture that they miss details or fail to follow up with other members of their team.

Despite the fact that these are the four basic working methods, you can utilize a mix of them. Logic and idea-oriented, as well as detail-oriented and supporting, are two of the most frequent pairings.

How to determine your working style (assessment)

Evaluate your communication

It's beneficial to consider how you communicate in order to narrow down the sort of working style you have. You're more likely to notice particular qualities in various work styles, such as active listening abilities in someone with a supportive work style.

Someone with a detail-oriented work style, for example, would compose succinct emails and maintain a stern demeanor in in-person interactions, whereas someone with an idea-oriented work style might use a lot of impassioned hand gestures when conversing with people.

Determine how you like to plan your work

The way you organize your day is another important indicator of your working style. Someone with a detail-oriented work style probably has a clear strategy for each day and seldom misses deadlines, whereas someone with a different work style could approach each day with more fluidity and finish their job at the last minute.

You might consider if you like time for preparation or a fast-paced work atmosphere that allows you to be spontaneous in addition to your approach to each day and deadlines.

Ask the following questions to determine how you plan work:

• What is the objective?
• What is the time limit on the project?
• What information or facts are required to know?
• What measures will be utilized to determine whether or not the project is a success?
• What method will be used to complete the project?
• What method will be used to accomplish the project? Is it important to have a project plan?
• How will the project's information be disseminated?
• Who are the project's participants or team?
• Is there anyone else who needs to be involved?
• Who can assist you in attaining the project's objectives?
• What are the gaps between where you are now and where you want to be after the project is completed?
• Why is this project important to the team and the company?
• What obstacles do you anticipate needing to be overcome as you implement this project?

See how you deal with conflict

While someone who works in a rational manner may enjoy a good discussion, others may shun any disagreement, even if it is amicable. You may have a better understanding of your personality both within and outside of work by assessing how you manage conflict.

If you have a supportive work style, for example, you could focus on finding a compromise whenever a workplace issue develops.

Take a personality test/quiz

Personality tests may be a very useful tool for figuring out both your personality and your work style. In fact, throughout the application or hiring process, companies may require candidates to take personality tests in order to gain a better understanding of their behavior and general attitude. Because the findings allow them to analyze an individual's attitude to relationships and work, they utilize them to determine if candidates or employees are well-suited for certain teams and jobs.

There are several types of personality tests available, but the following are among the most popular:

Myers Briggs

The Myers Briggs Type Index (MBTI) is a famous personality test that is based on the notion that people relate to one another in four different psychological domains (sensation, intuition, feeling and thinking). According to this test, there are 16 different personality types, and the findings might provide you with important information into your personal work style.

Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R)

This personality test assesses you according to the notion that there are five primary personality qualities (neuroticism, extroversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness). Six subcategories further explain how you approach the world within each of these qualities.

Winslow Personality Profile

The Winslow Personality Profile measures 24 different personality qualities using a decile scale. Despite the fact that this exam is most commonly utilized in sports leagues, it may give important information in any workplace.

How to answer "What is your working style?" in a job interview

High-performance teams are critical to company success, and integrating diverse work styles in the right way is crucial to forming effective teams. It's no surprise, then, that a popular interview question is "What is your working style?" The interviewer wants to know not just if you'll fit in on the team, but also if you'll fit in with the company's general culture.

If the team consists of a large number of autonomous employees, the interviewer may be seeking for a more collaborative or supportive addition to complement the team's strengths. If the team only has one or two big picture thinkers, additional proximity workers who can jump in and get things done may be required.

How to respond to the question

So, how do you respond to this question? First and foremost, do your homework. Learn as much as you can about the company's culture and, if possible, speak with current or former workers. Read the job description carefully and seek for indications regarding the expected working style. Big picture responsibilities are generally indicated by key phrases like "conceptual" and "brainstorm," while multitasking may suggest a match for proximity work styles.

Finally, be truthful and provide examples wherever possible. Let the interviewer know your preferred working style while also demonstrating your flexibility and ability to fill various positions. Concentrate on the traits that best match your previous research, but be open and honest about your needs. You want a job that is a good fit for you so that you may achieve career success and contentment.

Those with various work styles all have a role to play in the overall success of a company. When it comes to increasing efficiency and building a successful team, you'll be one step ahead of your competitors if you can learn to harness the potential of diverse sorts of work styles.

Tips on what to mention in your answer

Try to mention some of these key areas:

• Bringing collaboration to the organization/office/company.
• The value of seeing the "big picture" for your teammates or colleagues.
• Ability to take ideas and turn them into reality.
• The supportive capacity to see what your manager needs, what they prefer, and how to address those needs.
• Being the problem-solving force for your team members.
• Capacity to work alone, be aware of the support that your colleagues need, and connect with them.

Example answer #1:

Working on so many various projects forces me to be adaptable, therefore my work approach is highly fluid. In general, I try to focus on one job at a time, completing it as fast and effectively as possible in order to get the greatest outcomes. I utilize the team environment to check for faults on all of my projects because they demand cooperation. I am a perfectionist and a hard worker, and I believe that my excellent communication skills enable me to bring out the best in any group or project.

Example answer #2:

I am a really dependable person. I've only missed a few days of work in my career, and I'm renowned for arriving early and working late to complete critical tasks and achieve outcomes. This reliability also applies to my collaborative work. I always fulfill my deadlines and assist my coworkers in meeting theirs. For example, on my most recent project, a coworker was having trouble finishing his team's assignment, so I remained late every day that week to help him not only finish his assignment but also beat our original project turnaround time estimate.