Communication is vital to any organization. Each organization must
communicate, be it internally with its employees, or externally with
clients, stakeholders, suppliers and the general public. An organization
whose employees have good communication skills both internally and
externally is better at providing quality service. Learning and perfecting
your communication style as well as knowing when to apply the right
communication style is the foundation of effective communication. Good
communicators must recognize that communication styles exist along a
continuum, and that 'gray areas' exist.
We each have a personal style of communicating. Your communication
style is simply how you interact or exchange information with others.
There are three basic types of communication. The Assertive
Communication Style basically allows you to respect the rights of others
while upholding your own beliefs and rights. When the Passive
Communication Style is used you put the rights of others before your own,
thus minimizing your own self worth. A person communicating in the
Aggressive Communication Style stands up for his rights but at the same
time he violates the rights the person with whom he is communicating.
Although it appears that the assertive style is the best there are times
when both the passive and aggressive styles will produce better or faster
I honestly believe that my primary communication style is the
assertive style but I also know that usually at least one or twice a week I
am forced to switch to either the aggressive or the passive style of
communication. I firmly believe each human has intrinsic value. I
especially believe that each soldier despite our cultural, racial,
education or other differences is valuable to complete the Army mission.
In order for us (the Army) to be able to fight tonight each soldier is
needed. I don't care whose idea we use to successfully complete our
mission just that the mission gets accomplished. Last year, as the
supervisor of a military pay section one of my responsibilities was to
electronically collect the rent from over 200 soldiers enrolled in the
Automatic Rent Collection Program from their pay and then to electronically
pay each landlord. This is a pilot program specific to Korea. We
experienced several different problems. Sometimes when we experienced a
problem I called a meeting, stated what the problem was without assigning
blame. I expressed my confidence in the team as well as my disappointment
that a problem had developed. I made it known that the bottom-line upfront
was that the problem had to be corrected and that I was open to
suggestions. We came up with a solution, then developed a plan and made it
However, there were a couple of times when we experienced a problem
that I used the aggressive communication style due to time constraints or
because I knew that a certain soldier was trying to get over. I yelled, or
stated how the problem was going to be fixed. My way was the right way and
I allowed no argument or discussion. I got into that soldiers face and told
him what to do, when and how to do it. I made it known that I was in
charge and that he had better shape up or plan on shipping out.
Sometimes when my boss came to me about some of the problems I would
use the passive communication style just to get him out of my office so
that I could get to work on fixing the problem. I would not make eye
contact just keep my eyes lowered, or agree with whatever he said even
though I knew he was wrong and had no intentions of taking his suggestions,
I would make myself sit still and speak really low, or best of all I would
Over the years in the military, I have supervised over 300 soldiers
from different cultural and ethnic background. I have learned a lot from
my soldiers regarding my communication style and realized that I had to
adopt different method with different cultures. For instance, although I
naturally tend to get loud when I am excited about something I have learned
to temper down my excitement and voice unless I am speaking with my Korean
soldiers who do the same thing. I have also learned that my Korean
soldiers don't like direct eye contact and that they get offended if I try
to maintain my personal space when communicating with them.
In the military we realize the importance of both verbal and non-
verbal communication. I work hard using my communications skills to gain
and maintain the trust and loyalty of both my superiors and subordinates.
I ensure that they know that I am always accessible and that no matter what
the problem, issue or concern I am willing to help or to get them the
Bibliography: Internet www.siu.edu/offices/counsel/talk.htm http://members.aol.com/steveamo/commun.html www.nsba.org/sbot/toolkit/CommStyl.html