Understanding Your Communication Style

In the Toastmasters Pathway Project, Understanding Your Communication Style, a toastmaster has to identify his / her communication styles and shares with in a speech, the impact his / her communication styles have on his / her professional and/or personal relationships.

This is a Prepared Speech Project presented by Elaine Tan and she shared with us on her various conflicting communication styles which led to her being very wishy-washy.

Speaker: Elaine Tan, ACB, CL, DL5, MS1

Pathway: Motivational Strategy

Level 2, Project 1

Understanding Your Communication Style

Title: Why Am I So Wishy-Washy

Date: 16 December 2021

My Communication Styles

As part of completing this project, I did a simple test to better understand my communication style. Guess what? It turned out to be my dominant style of communication is supportive. According to Toastmasters International, the characteristics of supportive communicator are

• calm
• sincere
• steady
• gentle
• approachable

To those who know me well, do you think that these adjectives fit my style? Feel free to leave your comments in the zoom chat.

Apart from my dominant style, I attained equal scores for other styles, which are:

• direct
• initiative
• analytical

I am very comfortable with this result. I believe that being a supportive communicator will help pave the way for me to be an effective communicator. Why do I say so? This is because one of the characteristics of a supportive communicator is approachable. Being approachable has an advantage in the area where I apply my communication style.

The Reason Why I Am Wishy-Washy

Now why do I say that I am always so wishy-washy?

As you can see, my communication style is a mixture of a little of each of the different styles. I felt pulled apart in different directions when I communicate with others. Take for example, when I am carrying out a briefing at work, deep within my heart I want to be very supportive, which is my dominant communication style. However, lies within me, there is a Mr. Hyde, that wrestles with me, Dr. Jekyll.

There tends to be a direct communicator who is competitive, result-oriented, at the same time focused. I just want to get things done. I know exactly what we need in order to get things moving.Therefore, sometime during work meeting, I tend to have views from both sides as kind of agreeing with other parties. At the same time, I want things to be done in a certain way.

So that’s why it is a bit challenging to be supportive and direct both at the same time. Sometimes my colleagues tell me that I am very wishy-washy, that I am unclear about what I want. So, do you think that I am really wishy-washy? Feel free to put in the chat comment for me.

My Other Communication Styles

I too possess some initiating communication skill, which means that I can also be sociable, enthusiastic, and persuasive.

I will apply this style especially when I reach out to people in the attempt to get them to work with me and achieve a certain goal together. I think we need to be enthusiastic and persuasive to get people to be willing to work with us. Nevertheless, I do admit that I am a little weak in this communication style.

The last style I want to address is called the analytical style.

This style tends to be cautious, precise, and disciplined. I will use this style when I am giving a presentation. Being analytical, I need to also present your argument from two opposing views. You will also have to keep your audience captive and grasp the facts that you are trying to get across.

The Way I Apply My Communication Styles At Work

So, most of the time, I will attempt to apply a bit of each communication style here and there. Nevertheless, my primary style will continue to be that which is calm, sincere, steady, gentle, and approachable. This has worked well for me because as a volunteer manager, I interact with people very often. I feel that being a supportive communicator as my dominant style will really help me to connect with people better. This has also resulted with me appearing a little too calm and too approachable to the point that my superiors felt that I am comfortable with all kinds of people.

Thus, each time when we have difficult customers, difficult partners, my superiors will refer these difficult people to me. At the moment, you can see that the background for my zoom is a reindeer. The reason why I have chosen a reindeer to be my background because reindeers are very gentle. It reflects the way I am, my dominant style, how I communicate. In fact, the downside of my own communication style, is that I am less assertive, and lacking focus on what I want. That is why people find that me very wishy-washy.

So that accounts for the title of my current project, “Why Am I So Wishy-Washy!”