Communication Styles

Inherently all communication styles are important and no one style is better than another. The key to
effective communication is using the verbal communication style that best ensures your message will be
heard.
Here's a quick overview of the four communication types:
• Intuitive communicators are unemotional and freeform. They want bottom-line communications
that are short and to the point and that don't waste their time.
"What's the bottom line?”
Communication is quick and to the point.
Comfortable with big ideas and out-of-the-box thinking.
Thus, enjoy challenging convention.
You may risk missing an important point.
May have the most difficulty dealing with Functional communicators.
Some people will view the Intuitive as having an assertive communication style.

• Analytical communicators are unemotional but linear. They want confident communications that
convey expertise including hard facts and numbers.
"This quarter, sales are up by 7.2%”(data)
People who naturally prefer an Analytical communication style often have little patience for
communication that includes lots of feeling and emotional words.
Being unemotional often able to look at issues logically and dispassionately.
Possess an aggressive communication style.
May have the most difficulty dealing with Personal communicators.
This sometimes has negative political and relational consequences.

• Functional communicators are emotional and linear. They like to have control of the process, so
give them process-oriented and linear communications that start at A, and then flow from B to C and
all the way to Z.
"What happens first?," or "Who does what?"
Team members will often turn to you to be the implementer, because they have confidence in your
love of process and detail.
Because of the meticulousness are typically asked to play devil's advocate.
May risk losing the attention of your audience.

• Personal communicators are emotional and freeform. They want to establish an interpersonal
relationship, so use emotional language in an informal, friendly and warm way that gets them
involved in talking about factors including who else will be involved and how what you're asking
them to do will impact their feelings.
"I feel like we're off to a good start this quarter" (emotions).
Tend to be a good listener and diplomat, you can smooth over conflicts, and you're typically
concerned with the health of your numerous relationships.
Typically able to pick-up 'vibes' or indirect communication that others may miss because you're
attuned to the emotional intelligence aspect of communication.
May occasionally be derided as ‘touchy-feely.'

It's a truism that different professions attract different types of personalities, whether on the frontline or in
leadership. And so too we should expect that different professions will appeal to different communication
styles.

It's probably not surprising that IT, Finance and Operations have far higher rates of Analytical and Intuitive
communicators while HR, Marketing and Sales have many more Personal communicators. The real question
is how to leverage this insight to increase our communication skill.

For example, if you’re speaking with a group of finance leaders, you may want to prioritise an Analytical
communication mode. But if that audience consists of HR or Marketing leaders, then you might prioritise a
Personal mode.

Tailoring your message to suit your audience does not make you a manipulative communicator. In fact, it
makes you deeply empathic and high in emotional intelligence. If you were a passive aggressive
communicator, you wouldn't change your style to fit your audience. Instead, you'd use your preferred style,
and then when the audience reacted poorly, you'd blame them for "not understanding you." But that's NOT
what you're doing. You're making an effort to reframe your message to increase the likelihood that other
people understand you. And that's a deeply caring and smart gesture.

Having great communication skill requires interacting and speaking all 4 communication styles. And every
leadership team and corporate culture will have a different dominant style. So you’ll want to assess your
audience, whether one person or a group, to determine which of the 4 styles of communication you’re
dealing with. Depending on which of the different communication styles you’re dealing with, your
conversation or presentation will require very different approaches.

Why do we need to Improve our Communication Styles:

• Strong, stable interpersonal connections have a positive impact on physical and mental health, while poor
social connection has ill effects on well-being.
• Those who feel connected to others have lower rates of depression and anxiety.
• People with meaningful connections live longer.
• Good communication skills and the ability to connect with others directly correlates with career success
and job performance.
• Effective communication style builds a strong, healthy family environment.

When communicating with others, whether colleagues or clients, on the job, in meetings,
or on the phone, we all tend to stick to our habits. But often those habits are unhelpful.

Perhaps we rarely take the opportunity to speak up and give voice to our views and opinions – finding it
difficult for example to say ‘no’ when managers demand an extra task to be completed. Or perhaps we tend
towards a more combative communication style, especially when stressed, frequently losing our temper,
creating rifts and making others upset.
Our habits might be very deeply rooted, and they can be difficult to change. But change is possible – it
requires us to adventure into new and unfamiliar terrain where we act differently and communicate
differently with others. Slowly little victories can be won, and our habits can begin to shift.
However, individuals do run into problems with getting this process started. Often either they lack a clear
understanding of their current communication style, and are not sufficiently reflective about the way they
communicate with others, or else they don’t have a clear picture of what a more effective, professional style
of communication might look like.

What’s Your Communication Style?

The first step to develop your communication skills is to become more reflective about how you currently
communicate with others. What difficulties do you face? What could you do better? What changes might you
like to make?
To help guide this process of self-reflection, we follow the Interpersonal Influence Model developed by
HRDQ. This model identifies four communication styles: Aggressive, Passive, Concealed Aggressive and
Assertive. These styles can be mapped onto the following grid (copyright HRDQ):
As you can see, the different styles are mapped according to the two axes: ‘Openness of communication’ on
the y-axis and ‘Consideration for others’ on the x-axis.

‘Openness of communication’ here describes “an individual’s willingness to disclose to another his or her
thoughts, feelings, past experiences and reactions”, while ‘Consideration for others’ means “an individual’s
willingness to accord to others the same rights he or she expects for him- or herself.”

Of course certain situations may move you to act and communicate in very different ways, but as individuals
we do tend to have a preference for a particular style of communication, and the Interpersonal Influence
Model is designed to help you map your preferences.

4 Communication Styles: Description & Examples

By Lucio Buffalmano
Communication styles are patterns of communication and interpersonal behavior that people tend to repeat
across different social settings.
There are four types of communication styles:
1. Passive
2. Passive-Aggressive
3. Aggressive
4. Assertive

For a quick overview:

Albeit we use all of them at least some of the

times, most people tend to mostly stick to one
of them.
That is because most people tend to adopt the
mindsets, values, and beliefs of a certain style
of communication, and those mindsets keep
them stuck there.

1. Passive Communication Style

The passive communication style also referred to as “submissive”, has often been
linked to the symbolism of a doormat. At least in the most extremes of the passive
forms, this symbolism is correct. Since the passive communication style enforces
no boundaries, it allows others to “walk all over”. Of course, not everyone is
going to walk all over an overly passive individual. Not everyone is looking to
advantage of others, after all. But, alas, some people are. And some people
will walk all over the passive. And that puts the passive communicator at risk.

Aggressive: look Jerry, you’re not selling me a damn car. It’s my show here. That’s that
Passive: (puts his head down, looks up to the second highest authority in the room)
The passive man is often passive in an effort to avoid conflict.

They:
• Give in to unreasonable demands
Another weekend in the office for extra unpaid work? Uhmm, OK. No, no trouble at all.
• Go along with the crowd
You all want to go to McDonald’s? I don’t mind that I’m on diet, it sounds great
• Withhold opinion out of fear
What do I think of cannabis liberalization? What do you guys think about it? All stoner should be
imprisoned for life? Yeah, I can agree with that…
• Withhold any feedback that might come across as criticism
Yeah, I had to redo your budget report, but I don’t mind some Excel work, you’re doing fine
• Over-Apologize
Oh, I’m sorry I was standing here, you bumped into me, and that I spilled my full glass of wine over
my new suit
 From a social exchange point of view, with their over-apologies passive people end up inflating their
own social debt.
Apologizing if you’ve done a mistake is what you should do. But avoid over-apologizing if you’ve
done nothing wrong, or if someone else is at fault.
PRO Tip: If you have a tendency for over-apologizing, a quick fix can be to switch from “sorry” to
“excuse me”.
• Never take proper credit, always minimize one’s own contribution
Nah, it was OK, I was already awake at 3am, so no problem getting dressing and come pick you up
From a social exchange point of view, passive people struggle mightily to collect their fair social
credits and devalue their own contributions.
Passive individuals struggle to enter win-win exchanges and are more likely to remain stuck in win-
lose exchanges, as well as in manipulative relationships

2. Passive-Aggressive Communication Style

The passive-aggressive types mix elements of both the passive and aggressive style.
They are as afraid of standing up for themselves as the passive type, but have the same drive to control as the
aggressive type.
The result is a mix:
1. Capitulation out of fear
2. Followed by unexpressed anger
3. Followed by undercover aggression and sabotage to get it their way, or to exact revenge
Some of the traits and behaviors of passive-aggressives:
• Takes Everything Negatively
Passive-aggressives like to take things negatively. Because it justifies their repressed anger and
aggression. Taking things and people negatively makes it easy for them to justify their covert
operations. This is also why you want to avoid passive-aggression at all costs: it poisons your
interactions as well as your mood.
• Fight Without Fighting
Passive-aggressive can be quite twisted in their competition. For example, they might see you’re about
to commit a mistake, but don’t tell you anything because they think that your loss is their win. Or they
might be the coworkers who “forget” to CC you in the customer email, so that you don’t stay in the
loop.
• Do Things Improperly
They fear saying no, so they say yes. But they still want to find a way out. The result is they half-arse
their work.
• Are Non-Committal
Passive-aggressive individuals are masters of ambiguity. It can be hard to pinpoint whether they’re
telling yes or no, and it’s often premeditated. That way, they keep their options open to do whatever
they please. Afraid of talking straight, they’re also foggy and noncommittal with their requests.
You know, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to”, they’ll say. But if you don’t, they’ll sulk.
• Leave “hints” instead of talking directly
Instead of asking you to do your part of the cleaning, they might clean only their side of the flat.
You know, “sending you a message”, instead of speaking up.
• Cuss & threaten, but murmuring
The passive-aggressive might be seething with anger, but:
• Fears of his own anger
• Fears he will be punished for honest expression
• Fears the confrontation, or the consequences of engaging and “losing”
But when the anger is strong, it seeps out at the seams. Save for hiding it again behind a fake smile if
confronted.
See an example here:

Him: (irritated and fighting his own irritation, moving towards aggression) Ma’am! I answered your
question
Her: I’m sorry sir?
Him: (moves back to passive, tries to smile more) Ma’am, I answered your question. I answered. I’m
cooperating here, and there is no… (mutters)
Her: (going on the offensive) Sir, you have no call in getting snippy with me, I’m just doing my job here
Him: (retreats even further)
She was also not being fully assertive.
Especially the “just” part, it’s a defensive statement, and she had no reason to be defensive, she has all the
rights to keep questioning.
A more assertive response from her would have been:
Assertive Option: I understand this is frustrating but I am investigating a crime, and I intend to do it
properly. And I need you to cooperate with me sir
If she wanted to make her statement even higher power and hold an even stronger frame, she could have
added some “higher values”, for example:
I owe to the victim and to his family (= you’re being a selfish, low-quality citizen for stopping justice)
But it wasn’t strictly necessary here.

Power… At High Cost

Some passive-aggressive can get power. They can get some power because many passive-aggressives crave
power. So the more Machiavellian ones can find sneakier and more indirect ways to win. Problem is, of
course, sneaky and undercover ways only get you so far. And “so far” rarely is to the top.
The passive-aggressive style at very high costs, including:
• Personal costs: diminished self-esteem, repressed anger, and difficulty in developing strong
relationships based on honesty
• Status / social power costs: people eventually catch up to the sneakiness of the passive-aggressive
• Reputational costs: when the passive-aggressive resorts to sabotage and underhanded tactics, he gets
a reputation for being unreliable, disorganized, or inconsiderate
People might never be able to point out a few clear examples and say “this is what I’m talking about”, but
their general opinion of the passive-aggressive declines.

Handling passive-aggressive
A few tips:
• Remain calm
Passive-aggressive individuals use covert-aggression to attack others. If you overreact, you can come
across as overly-aggressive or thin-skinned, and you lose social status.
• Remove them from your team
If you are in a power or leadership position, consider removing them. Passive-aggressives are toxic
employees par excellence. Letting them fester means allowing them to go beyond your back spreading
rumors and breeding malcontent in the team.
• Let them know, you know: go meta
This is a risky technique since passive-aggressive can end up hating you for showing them a better,
higher power, and higher-quality way of interfacing with the world. But in some situations, it’s a risk
worth running.
• Pull them up
If you’re in a close relationship with a passive-aggressive, consider pulling them up into self-
development. Anyone can become less passive-aggressive and more assertive, and you might be able
to help them.

3. Aggressive Communication Style

The aggressive commutation style seeks to dominate others without regard or respect for others’ well-being.
Aggression is a bit like that famous quote on defining porn.
Even if you’re not sure how to define it, you probably know it when you see it.
Aggressive behavior includes one or some of the following:
1. Yelling
2. Visible signs of anger
3. Rude or disrespectful behavior (dismissive in the case of covert aggression)
4. Visible signs of emotional turmoil (or the opposite with total icy detachment)
5. Open and direct threats, even if delivered calmly
6. Body language that suggests the possibility of an attack
7. Physical shoving or pushing, or the threat of physical aggression
8. Stand closer, or purposefully far away to communicate superiority or disgust
There are some use cases for aggression, as well as some situations in which it’s a good approach.
Indeed, from a point of view of effectiveness, aggression is better at getting things done than both
passiveness and passive-aggression. However, it comes at a rather heavy cost.
Most people don’t like being overpowered, and especially not the most talented, high-value, and high-quality
ones. These higher-quality folks will either try to overpower the aggressor, or they will quickly abandon him.
And that makes it hard for the aggressive type to be an effective leader, and especially hard to make him a
good leader for a team of talented people with lots of options. Ultimately, too high levels of aggression
backfire both in personal life, and at work.

4. Assertive Communication Style

Assertiveness is relevant to power dynamics and

social effectiveness because there is an overlap
between “assertive” and “high-power”.

People who master assertion tend to come across as confident, high-power, and generally high-quality
individuals who get things done. And since they don’t overpower others, they also tend to develop strong
long-term relationships, which enables them to develop win-win far more than aggressive individuals can.
Assertion includes:
• Boundaries: Having, maintaining, and enforcing personal boundaries of:
• Basic respect: expecting and demanding respectful behavior
• Privacy: declining to answer or discuss questions and topics that feel too personal or nosy
• Time: choosing what and when to do, not allowing others to “task” you without your full consent
• Personal freedoms: freedom of choice, of holding different opinions, etc.
• Timely and honest communication: assertive communication is timely, honest, precise, and often direct.
It includes the communication of wants, needs, emotions, feelings, goals, and boundaries.
• Expecting and encouraging honest and direct communication: expecting, demanding, and/or
encouraging direct and honest communication from others
• Standing behind one’s choices, opinions, & feelings: the assertive communicator acknowledges and
stands behind his choices, opinions, and feelings

Assertiveness Skills:

Decide what you want/feel and say directly.

Be Specific
Avoid unnecessary padding and keep your statement simple and brief.

Use calm repetition over and over again, to maintain a steady position.
Broken record
Ex. It is not possible. I do not agree.

Indicate that you heard the other person say, without getting hooked on what they
said.
Fogging
This skill allows you to acknowledge the response and still continue confidently
with your statement.

Assertiveness is not about winning so you need to negotiate from an equal

Workable position.
Compromise Compromise of Self-respect mustn’t be the cost of compromising a solution for
difficult situation.

This skill allows you to disclosure your feelings with a simple statement.
Self disclosure Ex. “I feel guilty.”, “I feel nervous.”
Such confession reduces anxiety, enables to relax mind and take charge of feelings and self.
The four corner stones of Assertiveness
- Good eye contact
- Neutral tone of voice
- Open posture
- The words you use