Rising from your seat you walk towards the front of the room and turn to face the group. You know all the faces and have interacted with each of them before today. Most of them are gracious and attentive, but some are not. As the leader, this meeting is yours to deliver. You stand in front of them remembering everything you practiced…and wonder if it helped.

How are you feeling at this moment? Excited? Terrified? Ambivalent?

Your emotions in this moment depend greatly on your personality and communication style. Some people relish 10 minutes in front of an audience, and some fear public speaking more than dying. Still others would prefer to have emailed the presentation and be done with it. As different as these emotional reactions seem, they are identifiable, well defined, and predictable result of who you are as a person and how you prefer to communicate.

Communication Styles in a Nutshell

There are multiple ways to analyze communication styles and personalities, and none of them has proven empirically superior to the others. This particular method is based on Jung’s four personality styles, the same tools used to analyze both the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and DiSC personality profiles and the foundation for the Big Five personality traits.

Begin by rating yourself on two continuums, then overlay the results on an XY axis to form the ever-popular Four Quadrant chart. 

1. Dominance:

High – Assertive, advice giving, demanding, seeks control

Low – Cooperative, eager to assist, willing to relinquish control

2. Sociability:

High – Expressive, informal, talkative, open, enjoys personal associations

Low – Reserved, formal, controls feelings, enjoys privacy

Your Communication Style

The strengths and weaknesses of these four styles create a template that shows how you prefer to communicate.

Emotive

High in both sociability and dominance, emotive communicators are extroverted, spontaneous, and uninhibited. They possess a natural persuasiveness making them successful in politics, sales, and other roles where persuasion is valued. They are not suited to isolated work without other people to converse with.

Directive

High in dominance but low in sociability, directive communicators are introverted, serious, and direct. They hold strong opinions and are not easily swayed. They may seem indifferent, cold, and uncaring, and prefer to work alone. They see meetings as an unwelcome distraction from their work, and don’t understand why others aren’t as focused as they are.

Reflective

Low in both dominance and sociability, reflective communicators are quiet, reserved, and challenging to understand. They are disciplined and orderly with their life and method of expressions and may seem preoccupied with other tasks whenever someone wants to talk. Reflectives prefer to advise over being the leader.

Supportive

Highly sociable but low in dominance, supportive communicators are great sounding boards and make fantastic friends. They remain low key, listen attentively, express thoughts deliberately, and rely on friendly persuasion instead of dominance and positional power. They do not make great leaders in dynamic and fast-paced environments but excel in slower and more contemplative organizations.

Learning to Flex

While one style may fit you best, you may identify with some aspects of the other styles. Humans have the ability to change communication styles to fit the circumstances when new or different skills are needed. Learning to change your method of expression to fit the moment is a skill called flexing.

Moving quadrants permanently is impossible but shifting from one spot to another to deliver a presentation, manage a meeting, or attend a seminar is a good skill to learn. Even a reflective communicator can flex their style to become a directive or an emotive for a situation that requires it.

Some professionals get paid very well for this skill: actors. For some flexing practice, imagine yourself cast in a movie as a character with a different communication style. For the next hour, function how you think the character would in your same setting.

Would they be more confident and expressive?

Would they be more reserved and formal?

Would they shed doubt and fear to become dominant and take over the room?

Be the Best You

Each communication style has a purpose and a place. No one communication style is superior to the others. However, some jobs and roles are better suited for one communication style over another. Flexing is a great skill that seems difficult at first but grows with practice. In time you will feel comfortable acting the role when you are in situations where your natural communication style is less effective, or leaves you feeling uncomfortable.

And now we return to the front of the room…

Breathing confidently, you smile at the friendly attentive faces awaiting your presentation and ignore the detractors. Flexing up your dominance in response you begin to talk. After a few minutes, your anxiety turns to relief as even the detractors begin to nod in approval.

Your flexing practice has paid off.