7 Traits of a Good Facilitator

Whether you’re a scrum master, where facilitating meetings is a primary responsibility of your role, or you’re leading a meeting for your team, everybody facilitates meetings throughout their careers. In order to facilitate productive and effective meetings, it takes more than scheduling and leading the meeting. There are several key personality traits that are essential to being an effective facilitator. 

What is a Facilitator?

Before looking at what personality traits make a good facilitator, it’s important to understand what the role of a facilitator is. A facilitator works to make a process or action easier - and in the world of work, that is often done through meetings. The facilitator’s main role is to guide groups through processes and tasks to reach decisions and solve problems.

Effective facilitation is crucial to identifying and solving problems, handling conflict, and making decisions as a group. But these outcomes do not just happen. It takes a facilitator who helps to guide the process, identify sticking points, and continually remind the group of the desired shared outcome to be successful. In order to be an impactful facilitator, there are personality traits, or interpersonal skill, that are essential for people to develop.

What Are Interpersonal Skills?

Interpersonal skills are the non-technical skills that people bring to the workplace that can’t necessarily be quantified but are extremely important. These skills include interpersonal communication, problem solving, organization, leadership, empathy, and more. These skills allow for better teamwork, creative problem solving, and fostering a healthy workplace environment. 

Interpersonal skills are a critical component of being a good facilitator. Effective facilitators need to have strong interpersonal skills in order to bring a group of individuals together to work towards a common goal. It’s more than just scheduling a meeting and taking notes. It’s keeping people engaged, positive, and focused on the purpose of the meeting. Here are seven important personality traits of effective facilitators.

Personality Traits of a Skilled Facilitator

The Ability to Stay Neutral & Objective

As hard as it may be, it is imperative that the facilitator remains neutral and not inject their personal feelings or ideas into the group. It is their job to make sure that all participants are heard, given respect, and treated equally. It is not up to the facilitator to determine what solution the group chooses or to show preference to one idea over another. This can also be challenging when faced with groups of various levels of seniority or experience. The facilitator needs to remain objective regardless of power, personality types, personal opinions, or biases. 

Clear & Concise Communication

It may seem like a simple thing, but knowing what to communicate and how to communicate is an incredibly important skill. Facilitators need to be able to look at all the information being presented and synthesize it down to the key points that the participants need to know. They also need to be able to summarize and communicate the key themes, trends, and meeting outcomes or decisions to the group to make sure there is a shared understanding. 

It’s also important that while doing this, the facilitator doesn’t ramble or over communicate. There is a fine line between sharing the right information and oversharing. While the facilitator is there to guide and lead the conversation, they need to provide space for the participants to talk and share. 

Flexible and Adaptable

Sometimes things don’t go to plan - and that’s okay. A skilled facilitator can recognize when the planned approach or process isn’t working as anticipated. They’re able to take a step back, see what’s working and what isn’t, and adjust their plans accordingly. 

A good facilitator also needs to be open to adjusting the plan based on the team’s needs and inputs. If the members feel as though they’re able to contribute and share their feelings about the process, they become much more likely to buy into the process and fully engage. 

Keen Observation Skills

Taking note of everything that is happening during the process, from what is verbally communicated to non-verbal cues such as gestures, facial expressions, glances, and more, can help in facilitating meetings. Picking up on these signals and what people are feeling can help to open up communication to talk about conflicting opinions and potential resistance.

It’s part of the facilitator’s job to pick up on these signals in order to ask probing questions, adjust the process or bring up potential sources of concern in order to ensure all participants feel heard and that no perspective gets left by the wayside.

Optimistic Energy

Just as the facilitator is responsible for the process and plan of the meeting, it also falls on them to set the tone and energy for the group. If the facilitator shows up with a positive attitude and sense of determination, the group and the participants are more likely to approach the meeting in a similar way. Staying optimistic can also help the group stay positive when encountering obstacles. It makes it easier to take a step back and see what is working and what’s not.

It is also the responsibility of the facilitator to monitor the energy level of the group and note when people are becoming disengaged or tired. Keeping the group engaged and focused can be a large challenge, especially in virtual meeting environments where there are other distractions. 

Authentic & Genuine Sense of Self

In order for groups to be able to work through challenges together, trust has to be established amongst the group. The facilitator can foster this trust building by showing up as their genuine self. By leading with authenticity, the facilitator creates a psychologically safe space and gives permission to participants to show up in the same way.

Guides With Questions 

It’s easy to tell people how to solve their problems, but it takes a skilled facilitator to guide people through the process and help them solve their problems on their own. It’s not the facilitator’s job to solve the problem, but instead to ask the right questions and build a process that supports the group in reaching the desired outcome.

How You Can Grow As a Facilitator

These interpersonal skills can be incredibly hard to master but will ultimately help shape you into a better facilitator, teammate, and employee. 

If you’re interested in improving and growing your facilitation skills, we're excited to announce our new course, Agile Coaching Skills - Certified Facilitator (ACS-CF). This course is taught by experienced practitioners and  feature live facilitation practice. To learn more about the course and view the learning objectives, click here.

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