#632 The #1 Leadership Mistake That’s Holding Your Team Back with Mandy Keene

Could understanding your team's personalities be the key to scaling your business with more peace and less conflict?

In this powerful episode of Talking with the Experts, Rose Davidson sits down with globally respected master coach Mandy Keene, author of Understanding Personality, to uncover the #1 mistake leaders make when managing different personality types—and what to do instead.

Most business owners unconsciously hire people just like them. While that might feel comfortable, it can be a disaster for innovation, scalability, and team dynamics. Mandy shares why the best leaders do the opposite—they intentionally bring in team members who are radically different and learn to speak their language.

You’ll learn:

• Why your unique personality is your leadership superpower (and your blind spot)
• How self-awareness transforms leadership from conflict to connection
• What kinds of personalities you need on your team to scale your business
• How to use personality assessments strategically, not superficially

With over 40,000 coaching hours and decades of experience working alongside leaders like Tony Robbins and Russell Brunson, Mandy brings a grounded, heart-led approach to decoding behavior, building trust, and leading with emotional intelligence.

Whether you’re leading a team, hiring your first VA, or struggling with communication in your business, this episode will help you see yourself and others in a brand-new light.

🎯 Ready to lead from your strengths, not your stress? Tune in now and discover what your team truly needs from you. 

🔗 CONNECT WITH MANDY

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mandyjokeene/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mandyjkeene/

Website: https://www.understandingpersonality.com 

#LeadershipMistakes #MandyKeene #PersonalityTypes #EmotionalIntelligence #EntrepreneurLeadership #TeamCommunication #HeartLedLeadership #TalkingWithTheExperts

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Transcript

Intro | 00:01
Welcome to Talking With The Experts. Here we discuss all things business. By business owners. For business owners. Here is your host, Rose Davidson. 

 Rose | 00:12
Today, my guest Mandy Keene is going to share with you the number one mistake leaders make when managing different personality types. Hello, welcome to Talking With The Experts. I'm your host, Rose Davidson from rosedavidson.com.au. Mandy Keane is a globally respected master coach and the author of Understanding Personality. It's a groundbreaking book that helps readers decode human behavior and build powerful, heart-led relationships in both business and life. She partnered with her best friend, Russell Brunson to co-create the world's leading software that integrates the top personality assessment into one powerful platform. With more than 25 years of experience and over 40,000 hours of one-to-one coaching, Mandy has helped high-level entrepreneurs, visionary leaders and world-class teams elevate their emotional intelligence, communication and leadership. Mandy is known for blending deep psychology with the spiritual truth and grounded practicality, whether decoding personality types or guiding clients' lives. Towards heart-led leadership, her work is both transformational and actionable. Mandy, welcome to Talking with the Experts. It is such a pleasure to meet you. 

 Mandy | 01:30
Thank you, Rose. And I got to say my bio sounds 10 times better with that beautiful accent. 
 So I could just hear that. Thank you for having me on your show. 

 Rose | 01:40
Thank you so much. What led you to do and write your book, Understanding Personality? 

 Mandy | 01:48
It... Pain. Pain. Witnessing, so many of my beautiful clients, experiencing what I'd like to say is unnecessary suffering. 
 You know, Buddha said, pain's inevitable, suffering is optional. And, you know, there is... There's inevitable things as humans that we need to go through that we can't avoid. But I found that when it comes to people and hiring, you know, this is There are so many things that we can do to prevent... Unnecessary suffering. And that is knowing ourselves and knowing who we need for what position. I like to use the metaphor of like creating like a rock band. 
 You know, if you're the lead singer, you know, you need a keyboardist, you need someone on the drums, you need, you know, like they know who they need, right? To put the band together. And when you're starting a company It's the same thing. Every company needs certain people and certain team members. It's been fascinating. Witnessing the growth of when entrepreneurs become, okay, now I know why that happened. Why that didn't work or why hiring that person, you know, wasn't a match. And it's not just their fault. If I, if it's okay with you, Rose, I like to throw rocks at our education system. We weren't set up, right? We weren't set up to know who we are. 
 I mean, that's why I got into coaching at such a young age. I didn't know, Rose, that Mandy should never do admin. You don't want Mandy doing any admin support or any tech or any of that. I didn't know that. And when I did admin, I thought, Am I dumb? 
 Like is I started wondering because I was so bad at it. And thank goddess I got exposed to personality assessments because that's when I found out, phew. That's just not where I'm supposed to be. It's like a penguin's not supposed to be in the desert. It's not necessarily that we're, I truly believe that we're all geniuses. We all have a genius within us. It's about tapping into it. And that's why I love using assessments as one tool of many to empower entrepreneurs, make the journey more enjoyable. 

 Rose | 04:24
Absolutely. And, you know, sometimes, and I've done these personality assessments from time to time. 

 Mandy | 04:30
Have you? I was curious if you had, if you felt comfortable sharing some of those results. You don't have to, but we could have some. 

 Rose | 04:36
Fun. Yeah, I'm a bit of, I can't remember what they said. I've taken them like some time ago, but, you know, they're pretty spot on most of the time. But I do worry that when you do these assessments, it is depends on you know, the mood that you're in, the time of day that it might be, the day of the week, you know, all these little things that could change the outcome. Is that possible. 

 Mandy | 05:02
So such a beautiful question. I do believe that. There is a And not all assessments are created equal. 
 That's why I do love what we're doing, if I may plug, understanding perception. Yeah, if I may plug understandingpersonality.com, why I love what we're doing is we've combined the top, six assessments in one place and you know, I have to give credit to Russell is Russell had a vision of, Creating like a Facebook meets personality assessments in one and where people could see the results in one place. We selected the assessments that have been vetted that You know, is there always room for error? Absolutely. 
 Like, for example, I love Myers-Briggs. It's Myers-Briggs is a is one that. I love this story. It's a mother-daughter story. And they wanted to help people during one of the darkest times on planet Earth. And it's such a beautiful story. And you go back and there's so much validity to it when you break it down. Now, what I love about Myers-Briggs is like you can be, there's people that tell me, you know, Mandy, I took it. And, you know, one day I was in, ISFJ and the next day I was an INFJ and I don't know what is it. And it's because they're right in the middle line. They might be a 52% and then they toggled to maybe a 49%. And that's all that means. And I could work with someone or a, one of our coaches can work with someone, help them understand that. Now, someone who's really extreme, They're never going to, like I have many clients where if they're a thinker or feeler, if let's say they're an 89% thinker. Going to likely always be a thinker. They're probably not going to ever go to be a feeler, no matter what, right? It doesn't mean they don't have feelings. It's just that that's the way they communicate and that's the way they operate. And so... I found that absolutely, depending on the day, depending on what someone's going through, a significant emotional event could change the way someone takes an assessment. And that's why I believe in. I like to say, Rose, don't raw dog it. 
 Like don't just take assessments and then that's it. Like work with, I'm a huge fan, obviously being a coach of working with a coach or a therapist or a healer or someone who's an expert to help you integrate it. 
 Cause just taking them just to take them, it's probably not going to really change your life. It's just like, it's like taking one of those quizzes in a magazine, you know, like, It's interesting. Blah, and then you forget it, right? But if you're working with an expert, to help you actually integrate it, That's when the magic happens. 

 Rose | 08:01
Yeah, and you get in, you know, these personality assessments that, you know, they help. People get the best out of themselves, I find. If you know what to look for and you're right, you probably need a coach or a mentor to help. 
 You know, help you to do all of that things. I just wanted to touch on, you know, that people tend to, like people that are like themselves. But when you're... When you're in business, you know, that is not a way to do things, is it? You need to hire team members who are, different from you. 

 Mandy | 08:36
Yes. I actually have a funny story about Russell on that because you're so right on, Rose. You're so right that people like to hire people like themselves. In fact, when I first got exposed to assessments back when I was working for Tony Robbins, I was like, he found out that he did a whole mind map of everybody in Anthony Robbins companies. It was all these high dominant, high influencing people. And there was no one like doing the systems and the dotting the T's, you know, dotting the eyes, excuse me, crossing the T's like, no wonder. There's so much chaos. Right. And so it was so eyeopening that it was like a bunch, a lot of mini Tonys. 
 So you're, Absolutely right. And funny story, Russell was hiring, he wanted to hire another funnel builder that was just for him. And he was like, Mandy, I want your help in using disk. And he sent me the, you know, requirements that he sent me like, What this person's going to be doing and they're going to be, you know, building funnels and the details and the depth of work that they're going to have to do. And I knew and I was like, I know exactly the type of personality that Russell was going to need. And so he emailed me and he was like, so excited. He was like, what do you think of these people, Mandy? I really like them! Like, exclamation point, right? And I looked at their profile and I was like, Okay, you might like these people, but they're probably they're not I give them 90 I give this one 90 days I give this one maybe three days like they're not I go Russell The reason why you like them is because they're just like you I go and he made it a In the application process, he had them send in videos. And I said, the person that's perfect for this would die to send in a video. They would never want to send in a video. You need to take that out of the application process. He's like, yeah, that would be great. A deal breaker that their personality would not, would be so uncomfortable and they'd be so painfully awkward on video. And he's like man, I could tell like he was attached, right? 
 Like to the, so he trusted me and he did it over again. He was like, okay, what do you think of these? And I was like, this one's great. Perfect. And he hired him and his name's Nick Sanders and he still works for him today and he's perfect for it. 
 So. It's like, yes. And if you think past your personality and you think more about who's better for the role versus – who you just want to mirror you. 

 Rose | 11:29
Yeah, and mirroring can be helpful. However, as what you've pointed out, it's better to have people in the organisation that are different from you. They bring a different perspective to the whole organisation and to the role itself. And I used to work in temporary roles for a number of years and Sometimes the processes that this company had head where like convoluted and I got, you know, I could cut it down by three steps at least. And I'd go to the manager and say, well, what if we take out these steps and, you know, make the job a lot, quicker But you won't lose efficiency. 
 Well, did I get into so much trouble for how dare you tell me how to run my business? You know, we've been doing it like this for a thousand years or not a thousand, but you know. Yes. 
 You know, forever since we opened. And, you know, why should we change it just because you find it difficult? And so, you know... Obviously, I didn't stay in their role very long because, you know, they couldn't say the wood for the trees, but... 
 You know, my point being is that you need that input from others that you know sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees you can't see beyond the things that you have had in place for such a long time and there may be different ways of doing things and You know, different personalities, even though there might be trials within the organization because of that. You need to find ways to work around it. 

 Mandy | 13:00
Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's why I'm such a big fan of know thyself so that you can understand yourself. What are your blind spots? What are your superpowers? What's the best use of your time and energy? And What are your blind spots? Because the truth is you are giving them a gift. 
 Like, The industry that I'm in, Rose, like you are giving them. What so many entrepreneurs pay thousands and thousands of dollars to go to like these masterminds in these boot camps and paying these high end like speakers, coaches to help become more efficient. And you were just giving to giving it to him on a silver platter. But because. They weren't, you know, the ego can get in the way. And that's why I find the more that we... Really know this avatar that we're playing, the less we take it so seriously. 

 Rose | 13:58
Yeah, I do believe that. Now, what, Mandy, is the number one mistake that we're all making when managing these different personality types? 

 Mandy | 14:09
Ooh. Man. The number one mistake... I would say the number one mistake is Our culture is moving so fast. Quickly that The number one mistake that we make is were not slowing down enough. To really get to know each other. And so it's like we're moving so fast. And it's like, we gotta get this out. And it's this hurried, rushed. Culture. That It's like, You think about what it takes to make a gourmet meal. 
 You know, I haven't been to a lot. I primarily eat at home because I have such a. Special diet, but I've been to some like gourmet restaurants and it takes a while to get your food, right? It's a process. And I would say that the mistake is not seeing the value in slowing down and really paying attention and noticing what's going on with each other and remembering that we're humans, really, and that we're here to connect. And everything's just so like rush, speed, efficiency, money. And that's not necessarily bad. But the... The people that I have found, Rose, who... I personally have so much reverence for who are financially doing really well. They're doing really well. At the same time, they know what's going on with their spouse. They have a good relationship with their children. They're not a perfect, but their health is good. The one thing they have. That I find that they have that other people where they're very out of balance or very stressed and they kind of have more of like a chaotic life is that. They move slower. They just do. They move. They pause and they look in the eyes of the people on their team and their family and they check in and. And they make people matter. More than tasks and results and money and all of that. And so it's like, all of that does matter. And I know that we got to keep the lights on and pay the bills. I would say the number one mistake is forgetting that yeah, we're human. We need to take care of the humans. 

 Rose | 17:03
Yes, I think people that are in the front of their game are more intentional with how they treat people and how they know themselves, you know, fairly well i mean that you don't you know 100% know yourself because there's you know, things that change at the drop of a hat, you know, whether it be a death in the family or some other reason. And, you know, sometimes you find out your personality is not what you thought it was in the first place. But being intentional with the people around you, with your family, with your team members, I think is really important. And, you know, taking into account the different personality types that there are. And involving those people at their level, rather than making them come up to yours, is Got to be 100%. Positive. 

 Mandy | 17:57
Yes, it's, well, and I find it to be. For me, the more that I have discovered and realized things about myself and who I am, I don't carry the heaviness of the shame that I used to have. And that's my favorite thing about... This conversation, is it relieve shame? 
 You know, I am a fan of Brene Brown, and she says that shame needs three things to live secrecy, silence and judgment. And. And to relieve it. You need to have a safe place to be able to talk about it. And I find I don't even have to know someone's story. I don't even have to know all of it, but I can look at someone's personality results and I already know what they have shame about. I already know. I already know the buttons that they're avoiding to don't want to be pushed and I, when we become aware of, " okay, this is my fear. This is my shame." It becomes so beautiful because now it's like not controlling. It's not something like for myself, you know, I have the personality. It's why I got into coaching. A lot of people with my personality get into the field of coaching of, you know, I loved your interview with, Was it Chris Marr? 

 Rose | 19:22
Yeah, he was beautiful. Yeah. 

 Mandy | 19:23
Yeah. Wow. Listening to your Australian accent with his Scottish accent. That was like auditory ice cream. 
 So that was a great episode. Highly recommend it. I love what he talked about with people pleasing. 
 So I have a personality type that is definitely more on the people pleasing spectrum, you know, Enneagram nine, which is the which is more the people pleaser on the disc, more the high I, the influencer. And so For me, becoming aware of that It's like, no wonder it's been harder for me to say no. No wonder, you know, I have high empathy with my strengths. 
 Like, no wonder I'm good at my job. But no wonder I have a harder time, you know, being able to say no and having those boundaries. And so I was able to have compassion for Mandy, right? 
 Yeah. And then. I look at some of my clients, like most of my clients are very different personality types than myself. And Rose, I used to beat myself up. I was like, what? How can I be their coach? And they're out making millions of And, you know, what I make is what they write off in their taxes. 
 Like, wait a minute. And I'm you know, we've heard of the term like imposter syndrome, right? Imposter syndrome is a fancy word, way of saying imposter. I am afraid of who I am. I'm like, there's shame and when I realized I'm If I was like them, I would be them. I wouldn't be in my position. Right. 
 And then I was like, I'm actually right where I'm supposed to be and I'm doing what I'm good at and it's The shame evaporated because I understood my role and my strengths and I understood why they are good at what they're doing and why they struggle at things that's really easy for me. But it's so hard for them. And why they do things that's super easy for them that I'm like, how you do it. 

 Rose | 21:25
I don't know. 

 Mandy | 21:27
Right. And so that's where it becomes beautiful. Does that make sense? 

 Rose | 21:33
Absolutely. No, I totally 100% agree with that. I think, you know, it's horses for courses and you are the way you are through life experience or, you know, it's, Growing up or, you know, friends, family, whatever the case may be, you know, you have those certain traits that stuck with you from birth basically and you know others you grow along the way but you know you are who you are and you. You can only change that, I suppose, you know, through, great effort and I think you know if we can just all accept each other for the way we are the world would be a much kinder place. 

 Mandy | 22:14
Yes. Well, that's the goal, Rose. I think you and I are doing it. You're doing it with your podcast. You're doing it with this conversation. I actually have, I don't have them with me right now, but sometimes I use animals when I'm coaching and I put them on the Loom like this. I love using animals because it's such a great metaphor of taking out the ego. Because it's like some people are more of like a lion. 
 Some people are a golden retriever. Some people are a giraffe and it's like, Is the giraffe better than the lion or the lion better than the giraffe? Or are they just different? It's like, once we realize, that's who I am. And that's beautiful. Instead of being distracted with, Trying to be someone that. We clearly are not. And embracing the avatar that you are is... 
 So deliciously powerful and life becomes a lot more enjoyable. 

 Rose | 23:11
Absolutely. Now, if you want to find out more about Mandy and enjoy her beautiful story, you can go and find her on Facebook at Mandy Jo Keen. And she's on Instagram as Mandy Jo Keen and her website is understandingpersonality.com. Mandy, it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing with us today about how we can, you know, make the most of personalities and personality types and what makes us so special as humans. 

 Mandy | 23:44
Thank you, Rose. It's been a delight to be on your show. I'm so honored. I appreciate it. This was fun. 

 Rose | 23:50
Thank you so much. Bye-bye for now. 

 Mandy | 23:52
Take care. 

 Outro | 23:54
You've been listening to Talking With The Experts, hosted by Rose Davidson. Make sure you have a look at our back catalogue over at talkingwiththeexperts.com. And be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you don't miss out on any episode. We look forward to your company next time.