About the FIRO-B™: Leadership Patterns - Expressed Behavior

This article will look at how your total Expressed Behavior score might affect your leadership style in regards to your visibility within the group.

If your total Expressed Behavior score is in the range from 0 – 9, it's possible you might initiate conversations, then let others take over, or wait to speak until the others have given their input.  Some people with scores in this range arrange for others to introduce topics at meetings so they won't have to do it themselves.  If so, you might get complaints from the group that you don't show enough initiative with your team.  You might need to get direction from a colleague about how much input you're required to give, or how much you can delegate to others.  In the latter case, you might assign topics to individuals ahead of time, then put it on your meeting agenda.

If your total Expressed Behavior is between 10 – 19, you might find you look for a balance between exploring new topics and discussing current business.  You might carefully consider when to initiate action and when to let the team do so.  You might have clear ideas of what's important for the team, and yet let the team discuss issues they want to address.  One result might be that team members will complain you start and stop too much, or hesitate too often.  They might get the feeling you are testing them.  Instead, you can encourage the team to explore new topics or use an outside facilitator to experiment with new ways to discuss issues.

Finally, if your score is in the high range, over 19, you probably feel comfortable suggesting many different topics for discussion, freely express your opinion, jumping right into the conversation, and trying to get the team moving into new areas.  Some team members might feel that the team lacks focus, or is too busy to actually get work done.  In such cases, you could consider slowing down the team's pace, or using an agenda to limit the number of items discussed in meetings.  This will also help bring focus to the group's efforts.