What are your therapists’ communication types?

“Within the hair and beauty industry, you will mostly have open socialisers, reserved relators or direct directors as communication types,” says Etheridge. “We don’t get born as a reserved or indirect communicator; however, we can move around these circles with age and life experience,” she says. Here is her guide for recognising the different personality types in your team and how to get the best out of them in the salon.

Open The Socialiser

“Therapists can very much sit in this trait. They’re fun, chatterboxes and quite open about their own private lives. They like to gossip, but they’re nice, friendly people,” says Etheridge. “On the flipside, they can become a little bit over familiar, and can become easily confused or distracted and not carry out the requests that you have asked of them. For someone that’s a socialiser, you need to write everything down for them – even better if they write it down themselves. In fact, a lot of salon owners are open communicators, which is great because they get on with everybody, but you need to organise this communicator type. Otherwise, they not only distract themselves, but they distract others too.”

Reserved The Relator

“With beauty, you also get a lot of reserved communicators, which is a really good thing as these will be your most loyal employees of all. They drink in the information that you give them and quietly, through observation, you’ll see that they’re carrying out new tasks and they’ve taken it upon themselves to do so. They value reliability and these people feel a lot. Reserved people really don’t like being pushed, so when you talk about goals, don’t put any threat underneath them. They are hardworking people, but they’re the ones that will be emotionally led the most. There’s so much more that can come from a reserved person that they’re worth spending that extra bit of emotional input with, because they will be team players.”

Direct The Director

“Directors can be the most motivating but also be the most damaging. The direct communicator is somebody who’s a leader and likes to control. When this goes wrong, they may want to lead and control, but only in the staff room,” says Etheridge. “They are tricky because they are normally also high skilled. You need to be firm and let them know who’s in charge. Look at ways of delegating responsibility, such as giving them tasks where they work independently. Otherwise, they’ll undermine any of the decisions you’re making and will be taking control from underneath you with that team. However, they may just be yearning for more responsibility; they want to be seen with respect. You have to find out their goals and aspirations and give them a clear career pathway. Set them robust targets because they like to be challenged.”

'' The thinkers can come across as procrastinating, but it’s because they want no stone unturned. They want to know every single detail and then they will make their decision. So they’re not agile thinkers – a very good saying is ‘paralysed to analyse’ ''

Indirect The Thinker

“Indirect people are very analytical. They have a real attention to detail, will question everything and have to understand everything before they do it, and they tend to work alone. You might employ someone within your company who is an indirect or ‘thinker’ person, but they are more likely to be on your admin team than anywhere else,” says Etheridge.“They can come across as procrastinating, but it’s because they want no stone unturned. They want to know every single detail and then they will make their decision. So they’re not agile thinkers – a very good saying is ‘paralysed to analyse’. Within an appraisal, please refine everything about targets, company goals, visions and career paths down to the minutest detail. The other communication styles will not need that amount of detail though, so just bear that in mind.”