Understanding and Changing Your Management Style (Jossey-Bass Business/Management Series) - Hardcover

Benfari, Robert C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0787908584 ISBN 13: 9780787908584

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 1999

Synopsis

Are the best managers born that way, while the rest of us must struggle with the role and its responsibilities? According to Robert Benfari, our ability to manage effectively is based on a mix of characteristics that can be analyzed, understood and, most importantly, changed. In this book, he identifies six ingredients of successful management and uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to show readers how they can devise personality-specific strategies for improving their ability to resolve conflict, solve problems, manage stress, positively influence others, and handle difficult situations at work.

About this title

Review

Understanding and Changing Your Management Style, by psychologist and business consultant Robert Benfari, is a hands-on guidebook for determining the type of leader you are--and becoming the kind you want to be. It includes methods that you can use to influence others, problem-solving techniques, and exercises that reveal your psychological nature according to the widely used Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Using the resultant patterns, the book suggests practical ways to maximize your strengths, overcome weaknesses, and deal with difficult employees, such as hostile-aggressive Sherman Tanks ("Give them time to run down") and supremely confident Bulldozers ("Do some serious research so that you are on top of the problem"). "Good management is not in-born in some, nor is so-called bad management a fixed state for others," Benfari writes. "Changing your management style is possible once you understand what can be changed (and what cannot) and are willing to do the work to shift your assumptions, perceptions, and behavior." --Howard Rothman

From the Back Cover

Every manager wants to be a great manager. But some people just seem to be better cut out for the job, breezing through their responsibilities in ways that inspire loyalty, confidence, and results. Others seem always to be striving for greatness--always, somehow, falling short of the mark. Is there hope for the large number of managers who fall into that latter category?
In Understanding and Changing Your Management Style, esteemed psychologist and business consultant Robert Benfari answers that question with a resounding YES! Benfari confirms that the ability to manage well involves six specific personality traits, all of which can be objectively analyzed and, more importantly, changed.
Using a variety of self-analysis tools, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Benfari gives individual managers the means to rate themselves in terms of the six characteristics in question and to discover how their own personality affects their individual management style. He then shows managers how they can use that information to alter the way they handle people and situations and become stronger managers in the process.
Benfari also teaches managers how to determine other peoples' personality type so that they can anticipate how those people will react in certain situations and respond to different management techniques. Managers will thus be able to interact with superiors, peers, and subordinates more effectively. They will also improve their ability to resolve conflict, solve problems, influence others, manage stress, and handle difficult situations on the job.
Altogether, Understanding and Changing Your Management Style provides a valuable mix of assessment tools, real-world examples, and expert advice that every manager can use to better understand the dynamics of his or her personality-an understanding that can lead to the purposeful development of a superior management style.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0787908584
• ISBN 13: 9780787908584
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304