Understanding and Changing Your Management Style
Robert C. Benfari





Format: Hardcover, 282pp.
ISBN: 9780787908584
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Pub. Date: October 1999

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Description and Reviews
From The Publisher:

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.

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.


About the Author

Robert C. Benfari is a psychologist, business consultant, and trainer who has been teaching and applying the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and other management assessment instruments in business settings for thirty years. He has worked with organizations throughout the world, including Raytheon and the U.S. government. He was a professor at the Harvard University School of Public Health and is currently Lecturer on Continuing Education at Harvard and visiting professor at the University de la Empresensa (Argentina). He is also president of BGL Ltd., a consulting firm.


Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	About the Author	xiii
	Introduction: What Makes a Good Manager?	1
Part 1	A Model for Change	9
1	The Dynamics of Management Style: What Can Be Changed?	11
2	Personality and Psychology: What's Your Type?	23
3	Practical Intelligence: How Do We Make It Work?	56
4	Mental Models: How Do We Make the Shift?	66
Part 2	The Elements of Management Style	95
5	Needs: The Drive Towards Competence	97
6	Power Bases: Influence, Authority, and Expertise	122
7	Problem Solving and Conflict Management: Catalysts for Change	146
8	Values: Clarifying What You Stand For	169
9	Stress: Managing Work and Difficult People	187
10	Putting It All Together: Developing an Action Plan for Your Management Style	219
Appendix A	The Integrated Management Style Model	237
Appendix B	Assessment of Psychological Type	238
Appendix C	Assessment of Needs	243
Appendix D	Influence Inventory	249
Appendix E	Conflict Resolution Style Assessment	252
Appendix F	Four-Quadrant Problem-Solving Preference Assessment	257
Appendix G	Values Assessment	260
Appendix H	Stress Assessments	263
	References	271
	Index	275

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