Who am I as a Communicator?

The Listening Styles Profile (Rubin, Rubin, Graham, Perse & Seibold, 2009) is the one assessment that my results did not match how the other two people responded. In fact the results from my assistant and mother matched, but again, did not match mine.  My results showed that my listening style was in Group 3: content-oriented. I do believe that when I listen to others, I am looking for details to make sure I am making an accurate decision and in my professional life I need to make sure I am listening for details to understand what might be going on in the lives of my students and families.  Like the profile stated, I do feel that when there is a lot of information coming at me, I struggle with comprehending it all. There are many times that I “zone” out when listening to a lot of information because I can get overwhelmed by hearing all the information presented at once.  I try to take notes as much as possible because of that. The results of my assistant and mother had my listening style come out as Group 4: time-oriented. I can see why my assistant’s results showed that because in a work setting I do have to be aware of my schedule and have to carefully allocate when and how long I am going to be able to listen. My mother also knows what I am like as a professional and said the same thing, I have to be time-oriented during the work day. I did like that my mother pointed out, that if she were to do this survey for my professional and personal life, that the two results would be different. She believes if she were to answer the questions solely on my personal life or even had a non-work friend complete it,  my results may have been more in line with  Group 1: people-oriented.  I agreed with her when she brought this up, my listening style is very different in my personal life than my professional life, and a lot of it has to do with time.

The final communication assessment also surprised me a bit.  In regards to the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale (Rubin, Palmgreen & Sypher, 2009) I came out in the moderate range. I am going to be honest, I was expecting to be in the significant range. I say this because I can really call people out on things when warranted. When going over the questions though, I did find myself saying, “No, I’m not that bad.” I don’t attack people’s character or try to belittle them, so I can see why I am more moderate.  My mother and assistant’s results also showed that I was in the moderate level. My mother frequently made the comment while completing the assessment, “it depends on who it is.” This is a statement I agree with. A perfect example was today. I attended an initial intake meeting for one of my student’s at an outside agency for wrap-around services. I literally walked into the evaluation room with the parent and student and the agency worker started criticizing me regarding the incident reports I provided to the agency to help them understand the aggressive and unsafe behaviors this child is presenting. The agency worker didn’t even introduce himself to me or the parent before his critique began.  The agency worker told me that he did not agree with what I was doing in my classroom and that it is no wonder I am seeing these behaviors. Three different times throughout the 50 minute meeting this person criticized what I was doing in my classroom, in front of the parent. It took all I had to remain professional during this meeting and not become argumentative or defensive. I was so upset when I left! Had I not had on my “professional hat,” I would have become verbally aggressive toward this individual.

 

 

References:

Rubin, R. B., Palmgreen, P., & Sypher, H. E. (Eds.) (2009). Communication research measures: A sourcebook. New York: Routledge.

Rubin, R. B., Rubin, A. M., Graham, E. E., Perse, E. M., & Seibold, D. R. (Eds.) (2009). Communication research measures II: A sourcebook. New York: Routledge.