I believe that communication is one of the key factors determining our success and how well how we navigate the world around us. Our ability to relate to other people, get things done, and develop close and healthy relationships can all be thought of as a function of our communication. Therefore, by improving how we communicate we grow in our own emotional maturity and build better, healthy relationships.
A Framework
So I want to begin our discussion by introducing four different styles of communication. Could I invite you to look for yourself in these styles. Understanding them will help you become more intentional in your communication and, thereby, grow yourself and create healthier relationships.
Here’s a chart.
Let’s start with the two dimensions that make up good communication: One dimension is assertiveness which has to do with concern for self. People high on this dimension stand up for their own rights, look out for their own needs, and defend their own position. They seek to influence others to accept their point of view.
The second dimension, along the bottom axis, is empathy which is concern for others. People who are high on this dimension are sensitive to the needs, opinions, and feelings of other people. They want to hear other’s opinions and take these into account when making decisions.
Four Styles
By combining these two dimensions we come up with four styles of communication: dominate, avoid, accommodate, and collaborate. Let me be clear that we can fall anywhere along either dimension of the model and so not everyone is a “pure” or extreme type. However, everyone can be characterized as having natural tendencies in one or another of the quadrants.
Notice, from the chart, that when we dominate, we are high on assertiveness and low on empathy. When we accommodate, we are high on empathy and low on assertiveness. When we avoid, we are low on both assertiveness and empathy. When we collaborate, we are high on both assertiveness and empathy. We are good at taking care of our own needs and good at helping others meet their needs as well.
I want to point out that sometimes it’s hard to see the styles in our day-to-day conversations when everything is going smoothly. The styles become most apparent during sensitive conversations, disagreements or conflict.
An Example
Here’s a simple example. For the last several weeks, your neighbor lets her dog out of the house in the morning and the dog comes over to your yard to do his business. You have been growing increasingly incensed but aren’t sure what to do. This is the same neighbor that watches your house, from time to time, and so you don’t want to upset her.
How you choose to handle this situation depends a lot on your natural communication style. Let’s explore the four of them in greater depth.
Dominators
Dominators assert their own needs and opinions. They express themselves openly and seek what they want. Their strengths are that they tend to be action-oriented, direct, opinionated, sometimes critical, and appear to be self-assured. However, since they are high on assertiveness and low on empathy, they have less regard for how their opinions or needs might affect others.
Although they exhibit these tendencies in day-to-day life, they become more pronounced as tensions escalate. Dominators don’t like to be wrong and they don’t like to lose. Their strategy is to convince, control, or even coerce other people into thinking, doing, or believing what they want. During conflict they handle their emotions by defending, arguing, lecturing, blaming, or maybe even attacking. They tend to say things like: “You must (should, ought to, better).” “My way or the highway.” “You always/never.” “That’s dumb.” “Why don’t you.” “You ought to know better than that.”
Dominators communicate the message that “If you don’t do what I want, I will intimidate, coerce, or overpower you until you do.” At the extreme, dominators go on the offensive and attack other people, trying to win through intimidation, power, and control.
In my simple example of the neighbor and her dog, a dominator is likely to be quite direct in confronting the neighbor. It may sound something like, “I’m tired of your dog doing its business on my property every morning. If this keeps up, I’m going to file a complaint with animal control.”
Accommodators
Accommodators, on the other hand, are high on empathy and low on assertiveness and so they tend to put the opinions, needs and feelings of others ahead of their own. They are polite, seek to please, are easy to get along with, non-judgmental, and more self-aware than dominators or avoiders. Whereas dominators don’t like to lose, accommodators don’t like disapproval. They either need validation from others to feel okay about themselves or they simply believe that self-sacrifice and putting the needs of others ahead of their own is the highest way to live. They are nice and so try to get others to change using indirect tactics.
During conflict, they defer to others and even give-in or go along. They may stuff their own feelings and wants rather than getting them out in the open. They’re more likely to become silent rather than express themselves forcefully. Common behaviors that we see from them include: going silent, deferring to others, giving-in, appeasing, harmonizing, taking the blame, placating, pleading, apologizing, etc. They say things like: “What do you want?” “I want you to feel good about this.” “It’s not that important to me, whatever you think.” “I may be wrong.” “Is that okay with you?” “Let’s try to get along.” “I just can’t seem to…” “What do you need?”
Over time, accommodators may feel like martyrs, and, since they can’t be upfront and clear about their own needs. They may become depressed or act out their feelings by in passive-aggressive ways—by withholding or getting even.
In the example of my neighbor’s dog, an accommodator is likely to be bothered by the neighbor’s dog but unlikely to say anything, wanting to be friendly and not wanting to offend. If, over time, he/she does say something, it’s likely to be couched in very polite, even indirect terms. “Oh, your dog is so cute. I’ve always wondered how you train a dog to do her business. It must be a challenge.”
Avoiders
Avoiders are low on both assertiveness and empathy. Common avoiding behaviors include: denying the seriousness of a situation, suppressing their feelings, using humor, minimizing, being apathetic, rationalizing, acting as if it’s “business as usual,” distracting, dismissing, escaping, etc. They avoid engaging in order to be safe.
Avoiders don’t like conflict and, in particular, the strong emotions conflict brings, so they try to pretend that everything is okay. Their strategy is to leave issues alone and hope that they will go away. And since they have a hard time dealing with emotional issues, their relationships aren’t as deep. They don’t disclose themselves to others but distance and play it safe. Avoiders tend to be easy going, independent, rational, and detached.
In conflict, avoiders tend to say things like: “It’s no biggie.” “Let’s not make a mountain out of a mole-hill.” “What problem?” “You’re cute when you’re mad.” “I said I was sorry.” “Let’s be logical about this.”
In the example of the neighbor’s dog, an avoider is less likely to be engage their neighbor direction. He or she will more likely rationalize what’s happening with a thought like, “It’s so easy to clean it up. It’s no big deal.”
Downsides
Again, I want to emphasize that my definitions are of “pure types.” Although most of us tend to fall into one of these three patterns, it doesn’t mean we’re at the extremes. Most of us are somewhere in the middle with tendencies in one of the three directions.
However, as you can glean from my discussion, I believe that there are harmful consequences or downsides to these three communication styles, particularly if you over-rely on any one of them during sensitive conversations. Dominators may get their way but set up an unsafe and adversarial atmosphere of “me versus you” and “us versus them” which causes resentment and ill will.
Accommodators withhold valuable information about their own opinions or needs which not only limits good problem-solving but leaves them eventually feeling troubled and like pawns or martyrs who can’t influence what’s happening in their personal relationships or organizations.
Avoiders direct conversations away from unsafe topics and so prevent people from talking deeply about important issues.
The net effect of over-reliance on any of these styles is that relationships suffer and important problems go unaddressed.
Upsides
However, I also want to say that there are times when it is appropriate to use each of the three styles of communication, particularly those that are devoid of conflict—emotions are not aroused and the stakes are not that high. Some people will more naturally dominate, others accommodate, and still others avoid. These styles don’t get in the way of a good relationship and, in fact, may even make things easier since the roles are somewhat complimentary. It would be more of a problem if everyone were dominators or accommodators, or avoiders. It’s good and natural to have some variety.
So, my purpose isn’t to communicate that these styles are “wrong” or “bad.” I don’t intend to move you away from your natural style, in everyday life. Even the marriage researcher, John Gottman in his book, “Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” (page 11), points out that there is not a particular style of communication for resolving conflict that defines a happy, stable relationship as long as a couple has a foundation of friendship or mutual respect. The important thing is to be aware of the styles, their advantages and disadvantages, and use them consciously, as a situation requires.
As a matter of fact, let me offer some examples of when it’s appropriate to use each of the styles.
It Makes Sense to Dominate When:
- There is an emergency requiring decisive action
- Someone is coming on strong or showing disrespect and failing to listen to your concerns
- You need to assert yourself from someone taking advantage of you
- Your values are being violated or others are asking you to engage in illegal or unethical behavior
It Makes Sense to Accommodate When:
- You may be wrong or another’s ideas may be as good as your own
- Preserving the relationship is important
- You need to buy more time to prepare yourself to respond
- You want to help another feel empowered, in charge, meet their needs, or “win” in a negotiation
- Relationship damage will outweigh the benefits of a decision
It Makes Sense to Avoid When:
- An issue seems trivial or you don’t have a strong opinion
- The timing isn’t right (and you can come back later)
- Something is outside your influence or control
- Relationship damage will outweigh the benefits of action
The truth is that all of us use each of these styles at times. I have found that I need to put on my dominator hat when I negotiate with some strategic business partners who play hardball. I want to wear my accommodator hat when a decision is more important to my wife than to me. And I’ll wear my avoider hat when I simply don’t want to engage in something unimportant or when I know I can’t win.
In fact, I want to go a step further. As I work with people, I encourage dominators to learn and practice the tactics of avoiding so they learn not to make such a big deal out of everything. I teach accommodators to act like or at least move in the direction of dominators by being assertive enough to make their rights as important as those of others. And I teach avoiders to become more like accommodators who are aware of their feelings and inner experience.
The important thing is to discern when each of the styles makes sense and use them accordingly. The concern, of course, is when we slip into them unconsciously or over-rely on them during disagreements of conflict without being aware of their downsides or consequences.
Collaborators
Of course, dominating, accommodating, and avoiding are not the only choices available during conflict. A fourth and ofttimes better alternative style of communication is collaboration. Collaborators are high on the two dimensions of communication. They care about their own point of view and they also care
about the point of view of others. They recognize their own authority and don’t let pleasing others override their own opinions. Yet they are also optimistic about people’s capabilities and motives and so willing to go to them and talk openly to work things out. They step up to difficult conversations when differences of opinion exist, but they do so by seeking win-win outcomes rather than giving in or imposing their own will on others.
During a conversation, collaborators tend to say things like: “This is how I see things. How do you see them?” “This is what I’d like to do this evening. How about you?” “I want to understand your feelings and point of view.” “Is this what you mean?” “Here’s my take on this situation.” “This is how I arrived at my conclusions.” “Let’s keep exploring until we both feel understood.” “I want a good outcome for both of us.”
Can you hear both dimensions of communication in these examples? This is where we want to be, good at both advocating for ourselves and empathy for others. Understanding this balance is the essence of good communication and not just good communication but a healthy relationship, with your spouse, friends, as coworkers and those you lead.
The Neighbor’s Dog
In our example of the neighbor’s dog, a collaborator may say something like, “I value our relationship. You’ve been a good neighbor. However, I need to let you know that your dog is causing a problem for me by doing its business on my property each morning. Could I request that you not let this happen? I want to retain our good friendship.”
Of course, there is not a right or wrong way to communicate this message. There are other ways to deliver this same message. The key is not finding the “right” words but caring about both the interest of oneself and other. Notice that a collaborator is open and even direct but not in a hostile or attacking sort of way. He or she is coming from goodwill and makes positive assumptions about his/her neighbors willingness to cooperate and maintain a good relationship as well.
Collaboration is More Than Communication
In fact, and this is very important, collaboration is more than a communication style or strategy. It is a philosophy and way of being in which we can hold the paradoxical and seeming contradictory positions of a strong sense of self as well as empathy for others. A strong sense of self means that I know what I believe, value, think, feel, want, and stand for. I trust my own authority and am willing to advocate for myself. And empathy means that I value and care for others and let them communicate their truth without being defensive or needing to prove them wrong.
Notice that this is an and, not either/or. Life is no longer a competitive, zero-sum game in which someone wins and someone loses. We genuinely care about the interests and good of all. In this sense, collaboration is more than a style of communication but means whereby we become more enlightened, mature, and even loving people. This takes time. And it also requires that we be conscious of the four communication styles as well as our intended outcomes as we enter into conversations and negotiate the conflicts, large and small, that come up on a day-to-day basis.
What is Your Style?
So I’m wondering about you? What is your natural communication style? When and with whom do you dominate? What does it sound or look like? What are the consequences? Likewise, when and with whom to you accommodate? What does it sound/look like and what are the consequences? And when and how to you avoid? What are the consequences? And when do you collaborate? What does it sound and look like? And how would you need to grow in order to act more often from collaboration?
I will end by reiterating that living from collaboration is not only an expression of our maturity but also a way we grow in emotional maturity. In other words, learning to communicate in a more mature way pressures our own growth.
Grow Your Communication Skills
If what I’m sharing resonates with you then I want to invite you to check out my course on communication. It is a 6-hour course that teaches you a blueprint and concrete communication skills related to both empathy, honesty and accountability to improve your communication and, thereby, grow yourself and the quality of your relationships.
