Low assertiveness, high expressiveness

The Empathizer Communication Style

Empathizers tend to be less assertive but highly expressive. They are people people: slower-paced, indirect, comfortable with relationships, good listeners, and attentive to trust and emotional needs.

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Key points

Empathizers are collaborators and encouragers.
They work well in groups and adapt to others' ways of doing things.
They try to include everyone's opinions and are known as team players.
They seek security in relationships and work environments.
They are hesitant to take risks.
They reserve opinions and feelings until they know the other person better.
They do not like being rushed or talked down to.
They prefer two-way interactions and may feel defensive when delegated a task without questions.
They often verbally empathize, sometimes expressing agreement when they do not agree.
They reveal personal things after trust has been built and may chitchat before or after business.
They may focus on the relationship at the expense of policy, process or procedure.
They want to earn respect and trust.
They become irritated by insensitive or overly direct people.
They are slower-paced but diligent in getting work done.

In conversations

Use a slower speech pattern, lower volume and mild empathetic facial expressions.
Speak in feeling terms and seek to avoid conflict.
Focus more on personal feelings, both the other person's and their own.
Ask many questions to draw out the other person.
Use questions that are logical, flexible, less direct and sensitive to feelings.
Encourage additional questions and allow digressions.
Focus on the other person's stated needs and perceived needs.
Often allow the other person to control the conversation.
May allow discussion to continue for extended periods of time.

Things to watch out for

Can easily get feelings hurt without always saying so.
May lose sight of current tasks or deadlines while caring for others' needs.
Dislike conflict and may avoid confronting people who are not doing what is expected.
May say yes too often and become overburdened by others' priorities.
May become too compliant and allow others to negatively impact their work.
May fail to state negative feelings.
Generally dislike change and prefer staying in their comfort zone.
React poorly to impatient or insensitive people.

Adapting behaviours

Increase pace and focus the discussion immediately with more assertive styles.
Be less personally revealing and focus more quickly on key issues.
Control the conversation by allowing fewer digressions.
Ask more closed-ended questions when you need control.
Use more concrete terms and specific procedures or processes.
Summarize and repeat key points.
Continue involving the other person with open-ended questions.
Verify understanding of actual processes or procedures.
Speak with more directness to fast-paced people.
Remember that direct, faster-paced styles are often not personal.

Adapting Empathizers

Pay more attention to goals and objectives than other Empathizers.
Are faster paced and more time conscious.
Are more process oriented and break projects into logical, manageable parts.
Offer opinions and diplomatically stated criticism more easily.
Like to begin and finish a task and involve others less in the work.
Prefer to work on one task at a time.
Focus more on facts and details than other Empathizers.
Place roughly equal weight on relationship issues and facts.