During my 12 years in the military, I have worked with all types of communicative styles, and while you can get along with others most of the time, sometimes there will be someone in your office that you just never seem to understand, no matter what you do. As a leader, interacting with the people around you is vital. How can you communicate with your staff?
The 5 styles of communication include passive, passive-aggressive, aggressive, manipulative, and assertive. The impact of passive or passive-aggressive on leadership can undermine your authority, while aggressive or manipulative can create low morale. Authentic assertive communication can work best; let’s find out when.
Managing or leading a team of people with various communication styles can be challenging at best. This article will discuss the 5 different types of communication styles, how language impact your leadership, and how to successfully work with each style.
Why Understanding Communication Styles Matters as a Leader
How your team communicates with each other determines the success of your organization. Arguments, disagreements, and back-stabbing create tension and stress, which can keep your employees from completing their work.
When those with different styles come up against a conflict, how you lead them determines how well they can get along and how much they can accomplish together.
As a leader, knowing and understanding communicative styles can make or break your team. For example, if one of your employees has an aggressive communication style and another has a passive style, the aggressive employee will always have the last word. The passive communicator may then shut down due to the aggressive communicator.
This could cause several problems, severe emotional distress, and tension within your organization. Understanding how to manage and communicate with these employees can mitigate future issues.
Let’s examine the communication styles and how you can successfully work with each team member.
1. Passive Communication
Someone with a passive communication style often shows the following signs:
- They look down or up when speaking to you.
- They speak softly.
- They don’t make direct requests and, instead, express vague wishes.
- They don’t speak up for themselves and will stuff their feelings.
Working with someone who communicates this way can be difficult because you don’t know what they want or their emotional state. This can impact your leadership by not knowing where your employees stand on a given issue, and if you don’t know this, you won’t be able to effectively lead your team.
Several tragic events have happened within the last 20 years due to people being unable to express their needs, including school shootings.
Many of the shooters were mentally unstable and were most likely unable to express their needs or communicate assertively. While this is speculation, it points to the issue that managers must be especially vigilant when someone doesn’t speak up very often.
Working With a Passive Communicator
When you have a passive communicator on your team, it’s imperative that you don’t show your anger or disappointment when they make mistakes, as this can cause your employee to shut down further.
In this instance, it would be better to be direct, state the facts, and leave nothing to the imagination.
Other ways to work with a passive communicator include the following:
- Ask your employee for their opinions, preferably in a one-on-one conversation.
- Praise them for their work, as this helps them build their confidence.
- Encourage all employees to socialize with each other with various tools, apps, or games.
- When they speak up with ideas, point out the merits of the ideas without dismissing them entirely.
When working with passive communicators, build their confidence and encourage them to speak up more often. Passive communication can also be a benefit to your team, at least during some situations.
2. Manipulative Communication
A manipulative communicator won’t often say what they truly think or feel, as they tend to have a hidden agenda. In this sense, they could be seen as chronic liars and narcissists in the work place because they tend to tell people what they think they want to hear rather than the truth.
While they might seem agreeable, in reality, they’re trying to get people on their side to get what they want. This can impact your leadership abilities, especially if they tell you what you want to hear and do the opposite behind your back.
If your team sees this person getting away with this, they might do the same thing. Your authority is undermined, you won’t have any control of the team, and there is little to no respect for anyone at this point.
When you have a manipulative person on your team, the team’s morale can fall very quickly, as the person could manipulate others to do their work for them. The rest of the team could begin fighting, and the tension and stress could impede workflow.
You can often spot these communicators by the following statement-questions:
- You agree with me, right?
- I need you to do this for me, but I assume you’re okay with it?
- The deadline is Monday, and I’m so far behind. I wish I had someone to help me.
- I need to take Friday off–you sure you don’t mind covering my shift?
These statement-questions don’t allow the other person to say no or disagree, as they automatically assume that the other person would be too polite.
Working With a Manipulative Communicator
Sometimes, someone doesn’t know they’re using a manipulative communicative style, but that might simply be how they use manipulation to get what they want.
Regardless of whether the person realizes it or not, working with a manipulative person can be difficult. Here’s how to do this:
- Question their motives by asking them what they mean by their statements.
- Create boundaries that protect you from their tricks.
- Rephrase their statement questions into real questions.
- Cut the conversation short.
- Don’t act interested when they come to you with their so-called “business,” especially if it involves office gossip.
- Give them projects they can work on solo so they aren’t manipulating the rest of the team.
3. Aggressive Communication
When you think of an aggressive communicator, do you conjure up images of someone towering over another person yelling and screaming at that person? That might be part of the aggressive communication style, but it’s only a fraction of how someone might act.
An aggressive person doesn’t need to get in your face to be aggressive, as their words can be aggressive without raising their voice. Let’s look at a few examples:
- Get out of my way. I’ll do it myself!
- Your work is puerile and sub-par, and I don’t have time to explain it.
- How do you get dressed in the morning?
- This project has so many mistakes it’s hard to know where to begin.
A person on your team with this communication style can demoralize your entire team.
They might even have a few choice words for your authority and leadership style. But this can make you look weak in front of the rest of your team, and if you don’t deal with this person in the best way possible, your job might even be in jeopardy.
Working With an Aggressive Communicator
Like the manipulative communicator, you’ll need to establish boundaries with an aggressive communicator. Statements like those in the above list can make people feel horrible, and when you hear that happen, you’ll need to step in and let them know that what they said was unacceptable.
But to avoid backlash, you don’t want to appear threatening, or you could bring more aggression your way. You also don’t want to return their aggression, which could lead to an all-out brawl.
Here are a few tips on working with an aggressive communicator:
- Speak calmly and rationally even when the person is in your face.
- Listen to their problem and let them know they are heard, which calms most people when upset.
- Let them know that their behavior is unacceptable.
- Suggest alternatives to the problem they are upset about.
- If the problem is too much to handle, contact HR about the problem.
Most of the time, an aggressive person can be reasoned with if they feel like you hear them and get where they’re coming from. Listening and getting in their world can create a better atmosphere within your team.
4. Passive-Aggressive Communication
You might think having a passive or aggressive communicator on your team would be difficult to manage, but what if you have someone on your team who communicates using both styles?
The qualities of this type of communicator include the following:
- Avoids conflict but creates secret drama.
- Agrees with what you say but does the opposite behind your back.
- Says your idea would work but then mutters that it’s stupid while walking away.
- Spread rumors about people they don’t get along with.
- They are angry but are afraid to let that anger come out.
These types of communicators can undermine your leadership by spreading seeds of discontent throughout your team. And if they don’t like what you tell them to do, they will either do the opposite of what you say, or they’ll do it half-heartedly and put no real effort into the task.
Working With a Passive-Aggressive Communicator
When working with a passive-aggressive person, it’s important to remember that the behavior isn’t always personal. The person might be hanging on to unresolved anger and frustration about something or someone else, so encouraging them to express this healthily can go a long way to preventing future problems.
As with a passive or aggressive communicator, you’ll need to set boundaries for the aggressive behavior while encouraging them to speak up in a respectful and responsible way to combat the passive side of their communication style.
Here are some other tips on working with a passive-aggressive communicator:
- Don’t accept the answers they first give because if they say that the job is fine, but their behavior suggests otherwise, keep asking them questions about what’s going on.
- Identify where their behavior is coming from.
- Remain calm and composed while talking with them.
- Don’t encourage gossip if they discuss issues with you about another team member. Instead, get only the facts, not their opinions, which can create more drama.
If you play their game, passive-aggressive behavior can throw your authority out the window. The key is not giving in.
5. Assertive Communication
Assertive communicators know what they want and how to get it while still looking out for the feelings of others. Their communication is responsible, direct, and laced with positive feedback. This communication type is considered the best way to communicate with others, as it can help your team accomplish much more.
An assertive communicator does the following:
- They consider viewpoints other than their own.
- They take people’s feelings into consideration.
- They communicate directly with their peers and supervisors without being rude or offensive.
- While they listen to others’ ideas, they don’t forego what they want or need when appropriate.
- They use “I” statements to avoid offending or accusing others unnecessarily.
However, it’s not without problems, as someone could be overly assertive. An example might be when the “I” statements are used excessively or in a passive-aggressive manner. It can also happen when someone who doesn’t normally communicate assertively tries to do so, becoming laced with anger and frustration.
The assertive communication style usually doesn’t undermine your leadership abilities, but if someone is afraid to hold back when upset because they are trying to be assertive, it can create problems.
Working With an Assertive Communicator
Working with an assertive communicator can be pleasant and productive most of the time. However, as mentioned above, if the person is not used to communicating this way and harboring anger or resentment, it might come out differently.
An assertive person usually tries to bring the best out of people, and working with them can be pleasant.
Conclusion
Different communication styles can impact your leadership in different ways, and the key to managing it all is to adapt your leadership style to their communication styles. By practicing active listening, you show that you care about them.
And if they know you care about their needs and ideas, they’ll support you and allow you to be a better leader.
