From the course: Leadership through Feedback

What are communication patterns?

From the course: Leadership through Feedback

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What are communication patterns?

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- I'm sure, you know, people who react the same way every time. Some people are always defensive others are always emotional and some are vague and indirect. These are examples of common communication patterns. communication patterns are those hallmark ways that people typically communicate. They're often unconscious and most people don't even realize that they have particular pattern. Think about it. Do you know your patterns? So recognizing that everyone has their own communication patterns and learning how to work with them is one of the most important steps in becoming an effective communicator. The best place to start is understanding yourself and recognizing your own communication patterns. Here's how you can recognize your patterns, rate yourself on a spectrum for the following statements. Are you a direct or an indirect communicator? Do you get to the point right away or do you spend time setting the stage for what you want to say? Or are you somewhere in between? How comfortable with conflict are you? Are you happy to dive in and share your thoughts and opinions? Would you literally rather run and hide from the situation? On a scale of passive, to assertive to aggressive where would you place yourself? The next step is to understand the communication patterns of those you work with. If you're a direct communicator and need to get something across to an indirect communicator you can't just show up in their office and start in with your feedback. To be most effective you need to understand their patterns and alter the delivery of your message accordingly. So how can you come to understand other people's communication patterns? Well, you could ask them. Usually with questions like how do you prefer to receive feedback? If you had some feedback for me how would you handle that? Direct questions like these will use actually give you two types of input, what their actual answer was to the question and how comfortable you perceive them to be with the questions themselves. Between the two, you will probably get your answer. If asking them feels too intrusive, spend time observing them and note their responses and reactions to other people in situations. You can learn a lot just by watching and listening. So I want you to identify elements of your communication styles and share them with your team or your partner. Next, have team members identify their communication styles and set up a time to have them share their results with others. Where are the similarities and differences? Use the attached assignment to guide this process. When you begin to understand communication patterns you will discover the key to effective feedback.

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