Identifying Responsive Behavioral Styles

Responsiveness is “the extent to which other people see that you control your emotions or reveal and share them.” People who react quickly and share their emotions are straightforward to read in their voice, body posture, facial expression, and choice of words.

Identifying Assertive Behavioral Styles

Assertiveness is “The extent to which other people see you as a person who tries to convince others of your point of view.” Very assertive people try to influence others with things that are important to them.

When you combine the two scales, you arrive at each of the four different behavioural styles. Individuals who exhibit less responsive and more assertive behaviours are Driver Styles. People who are both more powerful and more responsive are Expressive Styles. People who exhibit more responsive and less powerful behaviours are Amiable Styles. Finally, less powerful and less responsive people are Analytical Styles. To quickly identify the styles of other people, ask these two questions:

• Are they more assertive and fast-paced or less assertive and slower-paced?
• Do they need to be more responsive, task-oriented, or people-oriented?

Adaptability is your willingness and ability to adjust your approach or strategy based on the particular needs of the situation or relationship at a specific time. It’s applied more to yourself (to your patterns, attitudes and habits) than to others.

No one style is naturally more adaptable than another. For any situation, the strategic adjustments that each type needs to make will vary. The decision to employ specific adaptability techniques is made on a case-by-case basis: you can choose to be adaptable with one person and not so with others. You can be versatile with one person today and less flexible with that person tomorrow. Adaptability concerns the way you manage your behaviours.

You practice adaptability each time you slow down for an Analytical or Amiable Style or when you move a bit faster for the Driver or Expressive Style. It occurs when the Driver or Analytical Style takes the time to build the relationship with an Amiable or Expressive Style or when the Expressive or Amiable style focuses on facts or gets right to the point with the Driver or Analytical technique. It means adjusting your behaviour to make others feel more at ease with you and the situation.

Adaptability does not mean “imitation” of the other person’s style. It means adjusting your responsiveness, assertiveness, pace, and priority in the direction of the other person’s preference while maintaining your identity.

Adaptability is essential to all successful relationships. People often adopt a different style in their professional lives than in their social or personal lives. We tend to be more adaptable at work with people we know less, and we tend to be less flexible at home and with people we know better.

Adaptability at its extreme could make you appear wishy-washy and two-faced. A person who maintains high adaptability in all situations may need help to avoid stress and inefficiency. There is also the danger of developing tension from the stress of behaving in a “foreign” style. Usually, this is temporary and may be worth it if you gain rapport with others. At the other end of the continuum, no adaptability would cause others to view someone as rigid and uncompromising because they insist on behaving according to their own pace and priority.

Effectively adaptable people meet other people’s needs and their own. Through practice, they can achieve a balance: strategically managing their adaptability by recognizing when a modest compromise is appropriate or when the nature of the situation calls for them to adapt to the other person’s behavioural style, they do so. Adaptable people know how to negotiate relationships in a way that allows everyone to win. They are tactful, reasonable, understanding, and non-judgmental.

Your adaptability level influences how others judge their relationship with you. Raise your adaptability level, and trust and credibility go up; lower your adaptability level, and trust and credibility go down. Adaptability enables you to interact more productively with difficult people and helps you to avoid or manage tense situations. With adaptability, you can treat other people how they want.

In my next article, we will put these ideas into practice.