You may be involved in leadership team development or a new staff member just trying to navigate the "matrix" that sometimes is career. Regardless of what your role is, you need to be very careful with "style points." In this post I'll confine that to the following definition:
"Evaluating an individual's approach and/or presentation in order to judge that person's worth."
My friend Marc told me once that leaders need to develop a strategy to bring clarity to their intention. In other words, don't let your intention be run over by your "style." I see this as important. I'm a visionary thinker, so consequently, if I were in a meeting on budgets I could appear bored. It's not that I see no importance in the "numbers," I just have a limited attention span for that kind of information. Over the years I've implemented specific strategies to combat my bored demeanor. Coffee would be a great example here.
So what do you do with the idea of judging people based on their style?
Even if I master my delivery and presentation, I can't always walk away clean. I can continue to work on getting better, but as many thought leaders know, your weaknesses can only move up a notch or two when it comes to growth.
Our best opportunity is in not weighting our decision too heavily on style. This is especially important in team (a group of peope who see the goal as more important than their own individual agendas) environments and loving relationships at home. If you're not careful, you can begin to see people through a very critical lens. I know that Malcolm Gladwell and others embrace an idea that the first impression is everything. It has a place, but to use it as the sole criteria would be naive. Besides, if first impressions were truly everything, I never would have married my wife. She laughed at me when I introduced myself to her over twenty years ago.
Just remember that the shy team member or over-confident sales rep. may have an intention worth looking for beyond the veneer.