How to actually know your team

People-Centric Leadership: How to Actually Know Your Team

We have all heard the advice. It is practically a commandment in modern management literature: "Know your people."

It sounds simple enough. It is the leadership equivalent of "eat your vegetables" or "get eight hours of sleep." Most of us nod along, believing we are already doing the work. We remember birthdays. We ask about weekend plans. We start our Zoom calls with five minutes of pleasant chit-chat about the weather or the game last night. We pride ourselves on having an "open door" policy.

And yes, these gestures matter. They are the social lubricant of office life. But if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit an uncomfortable truth: remembering a birthday or asking about a sick pet is not the same as building the kind of deep, resilient relationship that drives high performance.

In fact, relying on these surface-level pleasantries can be a dangerous trap. It creates an illusion of connection that crumbles the moment the pressure mounts. When a deadline is missed, when conflict erupts, or when a key employee unexpectedly resigns, we are often left wondering, "What happened? I thought we were close."

The reality is that "knowing your people" in a way that generates business value isn't about being nice. It isn't about being friends. It is about people-centric leadership—a disciplined, intentional approach to understanding the complex human beings who show up to work every day. It is about moving beyond the "Golden Rule" and embracing a more sophisticated, structured approach to empathy.

When you truly know your people, what makes them tick, how they process information, what drains them versus what fuels them, you unlock a level of efficiency and loyalty that surface-level niceties can never achieve. You stop guessing how to motivate them. You stop misinterpreting their silence as agreement. You stop wasting time managing them in ways that actively work against their natural wiring.

The Foundation: Genuine Care Meets Structure

Let's start with an uncomfortable reality: no leadership technique works without genuine care. Your team will see through performative interest faster than you can say "employee engagement survey." But genuine care alone isn't enough either. Without a structured approach, even the most well-intentioned leaders miss crucial insights that could transform their team's performance and satisfaction.

The sweet spot? Combining authentic curiosity about your people with a systematic framework for understanding them. Knowing your people means understanding multiple dimensions of who they are and how they operate. Think of it as building a comprehensive picture rather than collecting random facts.

Dimension 1: Personality and Working Style

Start by understanding their core traits. Most leaders have a rough idea of who on their team is loud and who is quiet, but you need to go more granular.

• Energy Management: Are they introverted or extroverted? This isn't just about whether they're chatty at lunch—it affects how they recharge, process information, and engage with team activities. An introvert might find your "energizing" team brainstorm to be physically draining, requiring recovery time before they can do deep work. An extrovert might feel isolated working alone on a project for weeks.

• Agreeableness & Harmony: Consider their level of agreeableness. Some team members naturally seek harmony and may struggle to voice disagreement. Others are more comfortable with debate and direct challenge. Neither is better—but knowing this helps you create space for all voices to be heard.

• Conscientiousness: Detail-oriented team members and big-picture thinkers both add value, but they'll approach tasks differently and may need different types of support from you. One needs the "why" and the freedom to roam; the other needs the "how" and clear guardrails.

• Mindset: Do they have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset? This shapes how they respond to challenges, feedback, and new opportunities. Someone with a growth mindset sees obstacles as learning opportunities; someone with a fixed mindset might see them as threats to their competence.

Personality and behavioural assessments can give you an excellent ground of understanding yourself and your tema members. Purshase : DISC, Talent sage, NEO.

Dimension 2: The Motivation Map

One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is projecting their own drivers onto their team. You might be motivated by public recognition and a fast track to promotion. If you assume your team is too, you might inadvertently demoralize the senior specialist who values autonomy and mastery above all else.

What actually motivates each person on your team? For some, it's recognition and visibility. For others, it's autonomy and trust. Some are driven by mastery and expertise, while others seek connection and impact. Understanding motivation isn't about asking once and filing it away. It's an ongoing conversation because motivation shifts with life circumstances, career stages, and personal growth. For a new parent, flexibility might outrank a title. For a junior hire, mentorship might outrank a bonus.

Check the Motivations’ cards  

Dimension 3: The Communication Decoder Ring

Many leaders stumble by communicating in their own "native tongue," assuming everyone is wired the same way. To bridge this gap, you must determine if your team member is Task-Oriented—focusing on the "what" and the specific bottom-line results—or People-Oriented, prioritizing how a message impacts team dynamics and relationships. Similarly, you must distinguish between the Analytical thinker, who requires logical evidence and deep context to feel secure, and the Intuitive thinker, who trusts gut feel and needs the "big picture" headline first. When you adapt your delivery to these specific psychological receptors, you stop misinterpreting silence as agreement and start ensuring your message actually lands

#adaptive communications post

Dimension 4: Feedback and Learning Styles

There is no "standard" way to give feedback. The exact same constructive criticism, delivered the exact same way, can be a gift to one person and a grenade to another.

Some want feedback direct and immediate. Others need time to process and prefer scheduled conversations. Some appreciate public recognition; others find it mortifying.

How do they learn? Through doing? Through reading and research? Through discussion and collaboration? Through watching others? When you understand someone's learning style, you can set them up for success in development opportunities rather than wondering why they're not "getting it." If you are asking a "doer" to read a manual or a "watcher" to jump in without observing first, you are creating unnecessary friction.

#from feedback to feedforward post

Dimension 5: Conflict and Problem-Solving Approaches

When tension arises, everyone has a default setting. When the heat rises, does this person confront it head-on or avoid it? Are they analytical, wanting to break down the problem logically, or intuitive, trusting their gut feel for solutions?

Are they task-oriented (focused on getting things done) or people-oriented (focused on relationships and team dynamics)? Neither is wrong, but these different orientations can create friction if you don't recognize and bridge them. In a crisis, the task-oriented person might neglect feelings to solve the technical fix, while the people-oriented person might neglect the fix to manage the team's emotions. As a leader, your job is to recognize these patterns and bring the team back to balance.

#navigating conflict post

The Strategy: The Platinum Rule

We were all raised on the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated. In leadership, this is a fallacy. It assumes that you are the standard for "normal." It assumes your team shares your preferences, your thick skin, your love of public praise, or your need for autonomy.

To succeed, you must upgrade to the Platinum Rule: treat others as they want to be treated.

This means adapting your style to each team member. Yes, it takes more effort. Yes, it's more complex than having one standard approach. But this is where meaningful relationships come from.

• If you have a team member who's introverted and freezes when put on the spot, you stop calling on them in meetings without warning. You send them the agenda in advance.

• If someone is motivated by autonomy, stop micromanaging their process—focus on outcomes instead.

• If a team member processes verbally, you stop trying to resolve issues over Slack. You pick up the phone.

Is this more work? Yes. It takes significantly more cognitive effort than a one-size-fits-all approach. But it is the difference between a manager who just assigns tasks and a leader who unlocks potential.

The Toolset: The Deeper Questions

You can't deduce all of this just by watching. You have to ask. But you can't just ask, "How can I manage you better?" during a rushed annual review. You need to weave deeper inquiries into your regular rhythm that reveal what really matters to them.

• "What are you proud of right now?" This isn't just a pat on the back. It is data. It tells you what they value and where they're finding meaning in their work. It gives you the blueprint for how to recognize them in the future.

• "What are you struggling with?" This opens the door to real support. But here's the key: you need psychological safety for honest answers. If people think admitting struggle will be held against them, you'll get sanitized responses that don't help anyone.

• "What makes you stay here?" Understanding retention isn't just about preventing departures—it's about understanding what you should protect and amplify. Is it the team relationships? The growth opportunities? The mission?

• "How can I help you more?" This might be the most powerful question of all. It positions you as a resource and support rather than just an evaluator. And it often surfaces obstacles—bureaucracy, lack of tools, unclear direction—that you had no idea existed.

This level of understanding doesn’t happen in one conversation or through a single assessment. It’s built gradually, through consistent and genuine interaction. You can’t sit down and “figure out” your people once and for all. Understanding how someone works, what motivates them, and what they need from you is an ongoing practice, not a box to tick.

Start small. Focus on one or two team members and notice what you don’t yet know about their preferences or patterns. Ask the question. Observe how they work, what energizes them, and what drains them. You’ll misread things and adjust in ways that feel awkward at times—and that’s part of it. The goal isn’t getting it right every time; it’s staying curious and continuing to learn about the people you lead.

So yes, send the birthday cards. Ask about their family. Have those casual conversations. But don't stop there. Go deeper. Build a structured approach to truly knowing your people. Adapt your leadership to serve them better. Because people-centric leadership isn't just about being nice. It's about being intentional, adaptive, and genuinely invested in the humans you have the privilege of leading.

What's one thing you could do this week to better understand someone on your team? Start there