Almost a year ago I talked to a League of Legends coach about different personalities in esports. We talked about tendencies of different personalities and how people react in certain situations and also how players and coaches communicate differently. He did a personality assessment back then and he fit into the Planner temperament of personalities. In short (I’ll explain later more in depth what this means), a Planner is a personality style that wants to take care of others with proven and safe methods, is not very risk taking and wants to have a stable environment. I talked him through the tendencies of his profile. After talking a bit back and forth he said to me: “But, this all sounds like this is normal, almost everyone has these tendencies and want this for their team, right?” My reaction was: “Well….”, with a pitched tone, “I can read you my profile…”.

We often communicate the way that comes easiest for ourselves

I started to read some tendencies of my profile. His response to my temperamental tendencies was: “Oh wow, really? That’s definitely not something that I would do! I wouldn’t like that at all! Are you really like that?!” In his response I said “I’m not always like that, but these are my tendencies, so when I face problems or challenges, I will often take the path that comes easiest to me and thus fits my personality without thinking, it is just my way of dealing with things in most situations.” The League of Legends coach’s mind was blown and he started to recognize people that had my I started to read some tendencies of my profile. His response to my temperamental tendencies was: “Oh wow, really? That’s definitely not something that I would do! I wouldn’t like that at all! Are you really like that?!” In his response I said “I’m not always like that, but these are my tendencies, so when I face problems or challenges, I will often take the path that comes easiest to me and thus fits my personality without thinking, it is just my way of dealing with things in most situations.” The League of Legends coach’s mind was blown and he started to recognize people that had my Strategist temperament too and how hard it was for him to understand them. After that moment I said to him that many players and coaches think everybody is all the same and treat everybody the same, they view everybody from their own perspective. But is that real effective communication?

Understand other ways of communication

For this story, you could say that the coach had Planner temperament glasses on and viewed the world and everyone else as a Planner too. Anyone who acted differently was just “hard” to understand and “hard” to deal with. It is very important as a player, but certainly as a coach, to understand all different perspectives and temperaments players and yourself have. If you want to compete on a higher level with your team or organization, it is very useful to understand these different perspectives, because of the impact communication has on the performance of any team!

Use different types of communication to get the best outcomes

Within an team or organization with many different personalities, almost everyone has a different mindset, different goals on what they want to achieve, a different idea on how everybody should approach certain things. You could say that every individual has their own temperamental glasses on, just like the League of Legends that had the Planner perspective glasses on. To work as a successful team, you want to have shared goals, ideals and a streamlined game plan where things go as planned. This can’t be achieved without proper and effective communication and a true understanding of each other. You have to put on different glasses to see what others see. Glasses that the other players or coach prefers to wear. By taking in the perspective of someone else, you can start to understand others better and create better outcomes through better and understandable communication.

Take time to learn about other ways of communication

There is no best temperament for communication. Every temperament has it’s pro’s and cons. The use of the right communication in the right situation is what is important and makes a difference. Instead of miscommunicating and be frustrated a lot of times, take your time to learn about other communication styles that come with different esports personalities. This will help yourself and your teammates to reach your next level in esports.

Because of the magnitude of things to go over on communication alone, this blog will be split up in 4 different blogs. Each blog will be focused on a different temperament that will give you insights into the communication style of each esports temperament and how each prefers to communicate. When you read all 4 blogs, you get to put other temperament glasses on. When you will read these 4 blogs you get to know what tendencies each temperament with the addition that you will learn by what they subconsciously mean by what they are saying. When you apply this blogs information in your own team or organization, there is more room for understanding each other and better insight to help and improve each other. This creates opportunities for a better culture, faster development of the players, but probably most important: Much better team synergy when out there on the battlefield whatever your game is.

Source: ActionType®

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