Emotionally Intelligent Communication – Your Email Style

The third style is called the Driven Achiever, since the focus in communication is creating an impression of success. Their emails tend to focus on making a winning impression. Regularly making pitches, selling themselves or describing their many achievements, people with this style can be very effective at using email communication to make a sale or reach their desired goal. However, this style needs to watch out for coming across as arrogant or overly direct. They should also caution against treating all email communication purely as a means to a self-serving and successful end.

If you’ve identified your email style in the image triad, begin to recognize when your attempts to create a unique, selfless or winning impression is getting in the way of the actual message you’re trying to get across. Work out before hand what the essence is of your email message and try to stick to it.

Mental Triad and Emotionally Intelligent Emails

Have you ever received or written an email that was overflowing with ideas, concerns, explanations and abstract concepts that crowded the actual message?

It is possible that you or the author is one of today’s mental triad of email styles. The three styles in the mental triad are concerned with analysis, imagination, understanding, and eliminating uncertainty.

The first style in the mental triad is called the Informed Observer, since the focus in communication is on gathering/giving information and avoiding emotions. Their emails tend to focus on expounding or gathering data while avoiding personal disclosure. Either writing concise briefs or expounding dissertation-type emails, people with this style can construct very detailed and informative communications that leave no stone unturned. However, they may run the risk of being overly concerned with facts and knowledge at the expense of ‘getting to action’ or establishing “written rapport”. In their avoidance of personal and emotional content these individuals run the risk of seeming too impersonal in emails.

The second style in the triad is called the Loyal Trouble-shooter, since the focus in communication is on potential problems or hidden dangers. Their emails tend to focus on highlighting worries and concerns or eliminating ambiguity. Regularly writing about fears and possible constraints, people with this style can be very authentic and open in their emails, often putting unspoken issues on the table – which can lead to positive outcomes. However, this style should caution against seeming overly suspicious and mistrustful in their often complex and analytical-style written communication.

The third style in the mental triad is called the Lively Motivator, because the focus in communication is on being optimistic, energized, and playful. Their emails tend to focus on possibilities, imaginative plans and adventurous ideas. Regularly brainstorming, joking around and jumping between interesting concepts this style can create a wonderful rapport over email that makes others feel relaxed and engaged. However this same writing style runs the risk of avoiding the serious content of the message they’re trying to get across. This style needs to watch out that they don’t avoid attending to necessary details of communication that may create discomfort or emotional negativity.

If you’ve identified your email style in the mental triad, begin to recognize when your emails are becoming crowded with abstract facts, long sentences and analyzing that will only alienate the email reader. Avoid using emails to think out loud and focus more on establishing honest and mutual rapport with the email recipient.

The Instinctive Triad and Emotionally Intelligent Emails

The last three email styles are known as the Instinctive Triad. These three styles are concerned with maintaining a sense of autonomy and expressing their will and vital instincts, so their communication is about getting things done or defining how things should be.

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