The Front Line Guide to Creating a Winning Management Style

Creating a Winning Management Style

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Empathy and Communication Style:

Being Accessible to Others

Parry identified four descriptors for personal communication

style: empathic, critical, searching, and advising. These four

ways of interacting with others are the major determinants of

your communication style; they either tend to draw others in,

or push them away.

Understanding Your Communication Style

• Are you empathic, tuning in to others’ concerns?

• Are you able to make critical distinctions?

• Are you good at searching and digging out

solution data?

• Are you good at advising, coaching, and

counseling?

Each of these four descriptors lies on a negative–positive

continuum: unattractive behavior on one end, and behavior

that attracts others on the other end. As an illustration, con-

sider this pair of opposites for being empathetic:

“Why are you telling me this stuff?”

vs.

“I can really feel your pain!”

Which approach is likely to attract others and encourage

them to come to you? Which will create warm and welcome

feelings in the minds of people who report to you? And which

will cause people to withdraw or withhold their feelings?

Do you care? Do you want to be an approachable

manager? Or do you want people to keep you at a respectful

Your Communication Style

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distance? A manager can do and be all the Theory Y things

described above, yet still be considered cold. If you think

your effectiveness is limited because people think of you as

cold, unfeeling, or unsympathetic, maybe you can make a

greater effort to tune in to people who are trying to share per-

sonal information with you (My mother died; my dog got run

over by a delivery truck; the transmission fell out of my car;

my best friend’s boyfriend shot her last night).

Why do you want to know about people’s lives? Maybe

you don’t, but social convention and practical experience say

that the whole person comes to work. So deal with the whole

person! Sometimes that means allowing them to share the

things that are foremost in their minds, so they can focus on

the work they have to do.

The whole person comes to work, so you’ll have to

deal with the whole person.

Is there a Theory Y way to do this? Of course. Many of

them. But the idea is to give people 30 seconds of undivided

attention, and then break the connection. Say something

soothing, such as “I know that must have been distressing to

you.” Then say something like, “If you’ll excuse me, I have

to make a call. But do let me know later today how you’re

doing with the combined project report.” That closing remark

returns the relationship to business.

Is there a Theory X way to deal with kind of situation? Of

course. All you have to do is assume that the other person,

like you, has a childish need to share his or her latest excite-