A communication style quiz in 28 short statements: Direct, Animated, Considerate or Precise. Your style and a full written report the moment you finish, no email.
I like to get the material in advance so that I can think before I answer
When I disagree in a meeting, I say so at the time
Before I raise a difficult subject, I think about how the other person will take it
I work out what I think by talking it through with other people
I open a message with what I need and put the background after it
What you get
A full written report in six parts, free, with no email. Save it as a PDF or send the link to the people you talk to most. See a sample report.
All four styles scored side by side and placed on a two-line map, with what a close second style adds to the way you talk and write.
Two short lists to hand to a colleague or your manager: what works with you and what backfires. Then the conversations your style handles well, and the ones where it misfires.
Bad news, a long email thread, a senior audience, feedback and more, with the one thing to check in each. Plus what happens under pressure, and how to talk with each style.
The model
People differ in how readily they speak up, and in what they attend to first, the task or the people. Cross the two and you get four styles. Each one is useful, each has a cost, and the last line of each column tells you how to reach someone who has it.
Outspoken · task first
You get to the point. You say what you mean in as few words as it takes. You lead with the conclusion, you are comfortable with disagreement, and you would rather have a short, honest conversation than a long, polite one. People always know where they stand with you.
Watch for brevity can land as bluntness, above all in writing.
To reach a Direct communicator: open with the ask, keep it short, and offer the detail only if they want it.
Outspoken · people first
You bring the energy. You think out loud and talk with your whole face. You reach for stories, pictures and comparisons, you build on other people's ideas, and a room is livelier with you in it. You would nearly always choose a conversation over a document.
Watch for detail and follow-through can get lost in the enthusiasm.
To reach an Animated communicator: talk it through in person, give them room to react, and confirm the actions in writing afterwards.
Reserved · people first
You make people feel heard. You listen before you speak and you choose your words with the other person in mind. You notice mood and tone, you ask questions, and you would rather reach agreement than win. People bring you things they would not tell anyone else.
Watch for your own view can go unsaid, or arrive too softly to register.
To reach a Considerate communicator: make time, ask what they think, and do not mistake their silence for agreement.
Reserved · task first
You get it right. You like facts, structure and time to think. You prepare before you speak, you ask for the evidence behind a claim, and your written work is careful and complete. When you say something is so, people have learned that it usually is.
Watch for more detail than the listener wanted.
To reach a Precise communicator: send the material ahead, be specific, and give them time before you ask for an answer.
Next step · for teams
A style only matters next to someone else's. Send one link, each person answers in about ten minutes, and the team map sets their traits side by side: who is assertive and who is reserved, who is warm and who is exacting, and where two colleagues are likely to talk past each other.
Next step · for you
Communication style rests on personality. Direct tends to go with assertiveness, Animated with extraversion and openness, Considerate with agreeableness, Precise with conscientiousness. The 60-question test measures all five traits as percentiles and tells you how strong each lean is.
Read this before you rely on it
Where we stand
We wrote the 28 statements ourselves. They have not been piloted on a large sample, and we hold no reliability or validity evidence for them. Researchers have studied communicator style since the 1970s, and the published inventories are longer and find more than four dimensions. Four plain words are a simplification that teams find easy to use. Treat your result as a starting point for a conversation, not a label, and never as a reason to hire or pass over anyone.
For workshops and classes
A short form for the room: twelve workplace situations on four printable pages, with a scoring key and the four style descriptions. Free to copy for a team session. The full 28-statement quiz and its report are online only.
Common questions
This quiz uses Direct, Animated, Considerate and Precise. They come from two everyday differences: how readily you speak up, from reserved to outspoken, and whether you attend first to the task or to the people. You may also have met a different set of four (passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive and assertive). That set describes how people handle conflict and their own needs, and it treats one style as the healthy one. The four here are all healthy, and each has a cost.
You rate 28 short statements about how you talk, write and listen at work, from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Seven statements belong to each style, and one in each seven is worded the other way round so that agreeing with everything does not produce a result. The quiz adds up your ratings, names your strongest style, shows your score on all four, and names a second style when it sits close behind the first. It takes about four minutes and asks for no email.
Yes. Ask everyone to take the quiz and share their result link or card, or print the short-form PDF and score it together in a meeting. For a fuller picture, the team personality assessment measures the traits behind these styles for each person and draws the whole group on one map.
Yes. The printable version is a short form: twelve workplace situations, a scoring key and the four style descriptions on four pages. It is free to download and copy for a workshop or a class, with no email required. The full 28-statement quiz and its written report are online only.
Your default is fairly stable, because it rests on personality traits that move slowly. What changes is your range. Most people learn to borrow a second style when the situation asks for it: a Direct communicator slows down for a worried colleague, a Considerate one learns to lead with the ask. The quiz shows where you start from.
This one is a reflective tool that we wrote for this page. The 28 statements are original, they have not been piloted on a large sample, and we hold no reliability or validity evidence for them, so your result describes a habit and does not measure you. It is good for giving a team shared words. If you want measurement, the 60-question personality test further down scores five traits as percentiles against everyone who has taken it.
None of the four is best. Direct leaders are clear and can be abrupt. Animated leaders energise and can lose the detail. Considerate leaders build trust and can avoid a hard message. Precise leaders are right and can be slow. The skill that matters is noticing which style the person in front of you needs.
Related tests
About this page
Michael Hodge (BSc Psychology, University of Wollongong) wrote the 28 quiz statements and reviews the scoring of every questionnaire on this site. More about the author.
The idea of describing interpersonal style on two dimensions is an old one; a well-known business version is Merrill and Reid's 1981 book Personal Styles and Effective Performance. Our items, scoring and descriptions are our own. Employers choosing a test for staff can compare the options on the personality test for hiring page.
Start here
Four minutes to name how you come across.