Four Workstyles: How to Get Better at What You Do

A key skill to being successful in life is understanding yourself: how you think, why you act certain ways, and what makes you happy or unhappy. A healthy sense of self-awareness is a catalyst for living a fulfilled life.

Self-awareness is also essential for the workplace, because every person has a different work style. If you want to maximize your happiness, productivity and fulfillment in the workplace it is important to identify and understand your work style.

The categories listed below separate work styles into four types: the Head, the Heart, the Gut and the Feet. Although you may not feel you fit completely into only one of these categories, read through all four and try to find one you identify with most strongly. Identifying your dominant work style is essential to bring awareness to why you work the way you do and how you could work better in the future.

The Head is an analytical work style.

Numbers, facts and details interest people in this category. They are objective and place proficiency and effectiveness over emotions and subjective feelings. If you like to be specific, exact and efficient in your work you might have the Head work style. Your weaknesses can include becoming inaccessible to others and over-processing things.

The Heart is a harmonizing work style.

People with this style tend to put people, collaboration and inclusivity as highest on their priority list. If you can quickly see personal and emotional implications of decisions, you might have the Heart work style. Your weaknesses can include excessive people pleasing, to the detriment of yourself, and taking too much time to complete tasks.

The Gut is an intuitive work style.

If you view yourself as highly creative and innovative, always wanting to try new strategies and ideas, then you might have this work style. People with this style tend to think more about what is possible rather than what has already been done. Your weaknesses can include making decisions too quickly and not consulting others.

The Feet is a practical work style.

If you find yourself enjoying concrete and action-based work and get bored with those who only seem to think and never do, you might have the Feet work style. Common sense and hands-on problem solving also come easily to those with this style. Your weaknesses can include taking on too many responsibilities and not taking enough time for planning and reflection.

If you have found the work style you think most applies to you—congratulations! You have taken a big step in self-awareness.

Now that you know the way you tend to approach most tasks and jobs, you can assess what tasks will come easily to you and actively work on the weaknesses that may accompany your style. And becoming aware of other styles and how they operate can make you more appreciative of coworkers who have different work styles.

Just as a body needs a head, heart, gut and feet to function, an organization works best with a mixture of all four work styles to balance out each one’s weaknesses and contribute their own differing strengths.

This blog is a sample from an upcoming book ACHIEVE is publishing. The book will be released January 2019. 

This book will draw heavily on “A Great Place to Work” Survey.  We would love to hear your input.