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If you’ve ever facilitated a Senior Management Team with low self-awareness, you’ll know the pattern: everyone is communicating (loudly, confidently, and often at speed), yet somehow the message lands like a paper aeroplane in a hurricane.

The tricky bit isn’t intelligence. It’s style. Senior teams don’t usually fall out because they don’t care. They fall out because they’re interpreting each other through their own default lens, then acting as if that interpretation is a fact. The result is predictable: Directs think everyone’s dithering, Systematics think nobody’s thinking, Spiriteds think the room has no energy, and Considerates quietly wonder why we’re all being so sharp with each other.

That’s why What’s My Communication Style? is such a reliable tool in a facilitator’s kit. It’s fast, practical, and (crucially) non-threatening: a 24-item inventory that helps participants identify their preference for one of four communication styles and recognise the facets of verbal and non-verbal communication. It gives you a shared language in the room without turning the day into amateur psychotherapy.

Under the hood, it’s built on well-known personality research associated with Jung and Marston, using two simple dimensions:

• Assertiveness: the effort a person makes to influence or control the thoughts or actions of others
• Expressiveness: the effort a person makes to control emotions and feelings when relating to others

Combine those, and you get a four-quadrant model with four memorable styles: Direct, Spirited, Considerate, and Systematic. For facilitation, the magic is in the simplicity. Senior teams need a model they can remember at 4:45pm on a Thursday when Teams is on fire. The HRDQ Style Model sticks.

Why the Facilitator Set makes this easier (and more “sticky”)

If you’re using this as part of a personal development plan (PDP) for individuals and the team, the What’s My Communication Style Facilitator Set is the version I’d reach for.

It’s not just the assessment. The Facilitator Guide is structured in two parts: first, it helps you get familiar with the product; then it gives you step-by-step instructions for administering the assessment and running the workshop. You also get practical assets that make the learning visible and usable in the room:

• A Style Model wall poster (brilliant for anchoring conversation)
• An HRDQue Card and stickers (small, but surprisingly effective for recall)
• Digital support materials such as a PowerPoint, learning overview, theory background, FAQ, certificate of achievement, programme evaluation, and a sample online assessment report

In other words: it’s designed to help you run a clean session and leave people with something they can apply on Monday.

A clean facilitation flow when self-awareness is low

Here’s a sequence that works particularly well with senior teams.

1) Start with self-scoring and pressure patterns

Don’t start with “Here’s what your style means.” Start with recognition.

• “When I’m under pressure, what do I dial up?”
• “What do I overuse when I’m trying to be effective?”
• “What do I stop doing that I should keep doing?”

This keeps it adult-to-adult. You’re not labelling them; you’re helping them notice themselves.

2) Move quickly to impact

The learning moment isn’t “I’m a Direct.” It’s “Here’s how my Directness lands on someone who’s wired differently.”

A simple prompt:

•  “When I’m at my best, people experience me as…”
•  “When I’m under strain, people experience me as…”

Then ask them to test it with the group. The room will do the teaching for you.

3) Teach style-flex as a leadership skill

The goal isn’t “be nicer” or “tone it down.” It’s flex your style to improve communication.

Get practical:

• What does “flexing” look like in a meeting?
• What does it look like in a 1:1?
• What does it look like in written communication?

If you want the PDP to matter, you need behaviours, not adjectives.

4) Make it operational: turn insight into team norms

This is where the tool becomes a performance lever.

Ask the team to agree communication norms for meetings, decisions, and conflict. For example:

• Systematics get pre-reads and clarity on process
• Directs get the headline first and crisp decisions
• Considerates get the human impact and space to surface concerns
• Spiriteds get time to ideate and energy in the room

Then translate that into a one-page “How we work together” agreement. That’s your team PDP output.

Turning the model into a personal development plan (individual + team)

The simplest way to build a PDP from this is to anchor it around three questions:

1. What’s my default? (style preference and typical strengths)
2. What’s my risk under pressure? (what I overdo, what I neglect)
3. What will I practise for the next 30 days? (one or two specific flex behaviours)

Examples of PDP actions that actually get done:

• “In every senior meeting, I will open with the headline and the decision needed (Direct-friendly), then pause for questions before we debate (Systematic-friendly).”
• “Before I challenge a point, I’ll name the intent and impact (Considerate-friendly).”
• “When we’re stuck, I’ll run a 5-minute options sprint to generate possibilities (Spirited-friendly), then we’ll choose using agreed criteria (Systematic-friendly).”

If you’re using the online reporting, the built-in worksheets and action planning make this even easier: you can capture commitments in the session and send them out as a follow-up.

A final facilitator note

This tool is designed to be used stand-alone or embedded into broader programmes (leadership, customer service, negotiation, team-working). That makes it a strong front door into deeper work: once a senior team can name how they communicate, they can start to own what they create.

And if you want a litmus test for whether the session worked, don’t ask “Did you like it?” Ask this instead:

• “What will you do differently in your next meeting because of what you learned today?”

That’s where communication style stops being a workshop topic and becomes a performance habit.