Leadership often requires getting other people to do things, sometimes things they might not naturally want to do. Many people work to live; they do not live to work. 

In general, although there are plenty of examples in modern workplaces, coercion is not a winning strategy – even though it might have been 200 years ago. It’s lazy, and it’s often ineffective. Effective leaders have moved beyond requiring compliance with orders, and they have done that by taking time to understand those they hope to lead. 

Jo Owen says that in business, we rarely have time to conduct full psychological profiling on work colleagues or external stakeholders. As a short cut, he developed a concept he called the Style CompassTM as a way of reflecting the characteristics we think are important in a person we are trying to influence. 

Developing the Style Compass approach starts with deciding the important aspects of a person’s character. Examples of characteristics you might use include:

• People focused versus task focused
• Process focused versus outcome focused
• Risk tolerant versus risk averse
• Words versus numbers
• Oral versus written
• Open versus defensive
• Morning versus afternoon
• Positive versus cynical
• Analysis versus action
• Progressive versus conservative.

This list is not exhaustive. To use the tool, identify the most dominant characteristics associated with the person you want to influence and place them as axes on the Style Compass. Focus on what is most important about the other person, rather than you.