How to Be More Objective
Are there times when you wish you were better at separating facts from feelings, understanding your biases, and seeing a problem or situation with more clarity? Although something like objectivity may seem like a trait you either have or you don’t, it’s actually a skill you can develop with practice.
Key Takeaways
- People with objective personalities separate facts from emotions and consider all angles.
- People of all personality types may want to be more objective when avoiding rash decisions, discussing sensitive topics, or de-escalating tension.
- You can practice being more objective by recognizing the thoughts standing in your way, setting goals, and practicing.
- Practice being more objective by improving your listening skills, revisiting your assumptions, and promoting shared decision-making, among other tips.
Objective mindset: definition and examples
“I let facts guide my thinking.”
People disposed to the objective mindset consider all angles and construct logical arguments. It’s not about being a robot; it’s about being aware of how emotions and biases impact their viewpoint. Being honest with themselves about that is different from disconnecting from their emotions.
Objective people understand when feelings and egos need to be set aside. They’re great at compartmentalizing and distilling problems to their essence. They often have the ability to step back and analyze a situation to determine what they can control and what they can’t.
An objective personality often aligns with the DiSC® C style.
Source: Everything DiSC® Agile EQ™
Why are some people more objective?
People reach for the mindsets that help them meet their core emotional needs. Someone who is naturally objective may have key motivators such as:
- maintaining stability, desiring predictable outcomes
- avoiding the chaos of strong emotions
- earning the respect and trust of others
- achieving competence, maintaining high standards
- avoiding mistakes
- protecting dignity
Benefits of remaining objective
Someone with the ability to separate facts from emotions is an incredible asset to any team. Even if objectivity is not a mindset that comes naturally to you, employing it when needed can bring clarity to complex decisions. Other benefits of the objective mindset include the ability to:
- strip away the noise and see more clearly
- zero in on essential facts
- use logic to create common ground and a common language accessible to all sides of a debate
- recognize when emotions are impacting your judgment or the judgment of others
- see how personal relationships are keeping people from acting logically
- produce consistent results your team can rely on
- make choices based on the big picture
- explain to colleagues the rationale behind decisions that impact them
- be confident in your judgment
- sniff out bias
There are aspects of objectivity that hold import for people of various DiSC styles. For example:
- D styles tend to get carried away with their own certainty, discarding facts that don’t support them. If they stretch into an objective mindset, they can better see their own biases as well as critical information they missed, both of which will ultimately help them be more successful.
- It may be difficult for i styles to deprioritize emotions, but an objective mindset can show them that decisions made to accommodate feelings aren’t always the best ones for a team’s long-term goals.
Limitations of the objective mindset
If you’re a strong C style and firmly rooted in the objective mindset, there may be a tiny voice in your head saying, “Why would you ever choose not to be objective?” But part of developing emotional intelligence is being able to identify times when stretching to another mindset is the best choice (maybe even objectively the best choice!). If you get stuck in the objective mindset, you might:
- discount the relevance of emotions in team situations
- overwhelm people with logic and facts, especially when they disagree with you
- fail to recognize when someone’s emotional needs should take first priority
- miss out on opportunities that benefit from an intuitive approach
- become lost when the facts don’t present one clear choice
- fail to rally your colleagues around an idea when facts are not enough to get them excited
- forget to consider the emotional impact of a decision on a coworker
- be unable to throw yourself into an experience or let yourself go
Situations that may call for being objective
Different DiSC styles will need to tap into the objective mindset in different scenarios, but there are some general situations that tend to benefit from objectivity:
- identifying the critical facts in a complicated or confusing situation
- distancing yourself from your own biases
- stepping back from your emotions or the emotions of others
- convincing someone who tends to be objective
- gaining insight into a subject that creates strong emotions
How to be more objective
Recognize your thoughts
The various DiSC styles may struggle with objectivity for different reasons. A person with an iS style may take criticism harder than the situation warrants, whereas a D style may ignore valid criticism if it doesn’t support their vision.
The 26-page personalized Agile EQ profile (see sample) walks you through your own relationship to each mindset. The profile provides concrete tips for recognizing the automatic thoughts driving your behavior, setting goals in line with your comfort level, and creating an action plan to help you achieve them.
Depending on your DiSC style and comfort level with the objective mindset, you may need to fight off thoughts like:
- If I feel this strongly, it has to be right.
- It’s not worth upsetting people.
- I’m being untrue to myself if I don’t follow my gut.
- I know I’m right, even if I don’t have the data to back it up.
- Let’s not waste time thinking through every angle.
Set goals
Then you’ll identify beginner, intermediate, and advanced goals for gaining comfort in calling on the objective mindset when it is needed. Sample goals may be:
- I recognize when I am overly concerned about protecting people’s feelings.
- I can separate the content of feedback from the tone and style in which it’s delivered.
- When forming opinions, I take the time to research relevant facts.
- I usually know when it’s important to set my personal feelings aside.
- I regularly put effort into overcoming my biases.
Start practicing
If objectivity takes a lot of effort for you, those may sound like unreachable goals. But emotional intelligence really is a skill that you can develop with practice. People of different styles will work toward those goals in their own ways, but here is some general advice on becoming more objective:
- Invite others to critique your thinking.
- If you’re really excited about something, take a second to make sure it’s what works best.
- Take critical feedback less personally.
- Learn to balance emotion and logic in decision-making.
- Recognize that it isn’t your job to please everyone.
- Work to understand the impact of bias in decision-making and communication, and take steps to address your own biases.
The mindsets that you reach for instinctively are unlikely to change over time, but what can change is your comfort level with stretching into other attitudes. This stretching can improve how you prepare for situations you know may be challenging for you, or may require an approach different from your usual plan of attack.
Posted 08/05/2020, Last Updated 12/26/2024
