Find Out Your Influencing Style
You can complete this influencing styles questionnaire to identify your influencing style. Or you might ask others to complete it about you. Then you can compare the two; how you see yourself, and how others see you. Interesting!
Overview
There are 4 steps to identifying your influencing style:
- Step One – Statements: There are 72 statements for you to read. Yes, it’s a lot, but we want it to be accurate.
- Step Two – Scoring: Reading each of the statements you score yourself from rarely to very frequently.
- Step Three – Grid: Transfer your scores to identify your influencing style.
- Step Four – Adapt: This page shows how you might use another style, other than your own.
Detailed Instructions for Influencing Styles Questionnaire
Step One: Statements
Click the image below to print the PDF version of our 72 influencing styles statements.
This will print as a portrait page. To fit all the statements on one page we had to make them quite small, so keep the window open on your computer and use CTRL and the ‘+ button to zoom in.
Step Two: Scoring
Put the printed copy of the Step One Statements on the left-hand side of your desk. Then click on the image below and print the PDF of the Scoring Page. Put this on the right-hand side of your desk.
Read the first Statement from Step One, which is, ‘Makes high-quality suggestions and proposals’. Considering this statement, and if you are scoring for yourself, consider how often you do this. Choose from one of the 5 possible answers below:
- Rarely; hardly ever do this.
- Occasionally, but infrequently; that is less often than most other people you see in similar situations.
- An average amount; that is about as often as most other people you observe in similar situations.
- Fairly frequently; that is somewhat more often than most people you observe in similar situations.
- Very frequently; that is considerably more often than most people you observe in similar situations.
On the Scoring Page, now go to slot number ‘1’ and write your score in that box. This can be either 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. Repeat this exercise for each of the remaining 71 Step One Statements. Finally, tally the totals of each row, as you will need to transfer the total in the next step.
Step Three: Grid
Discard the Step One Statements Page and place the Step 2 Scoring Page on the left-hand side of your desk. Print the PDF Step 3 Grid Page below and place this on the right-hand side of your desk.
Click the image below for a larger version.
Write your name, if the questionnaire is about you, in the first row under ‘Name’.
Then, transfer the ‘Row Totals’ from the Step Two Scoring Page to the Step 3 Grid Page. If you had written ‘6’ as the total of the row of statements 1, 13, 25, 37, 49, and 61, then write a ‘6’ in the box under ‘Proposing’.
Repeat this exercise until all the numbers in the column of ‘Row Totals’ on the Step 2 Scoring Page have been transferred to the Step 3 Grid Page. The additional 6 rows on the Step 3 Grid page are for you to complete this exercise for other people. Or if you have asked other people to complete the influencing styles questionnaire for you, then you could add their names and their scores, comparing their view of you to your view.
Step Four: Adapt
Using Step 3, add totals up under each of the 4 sections and the one with the most is your influencing style.
This step is to help you recognise your style. Plus, having identified your influencing style, this Adapting Page is to help you to influence using another style. For example, if you identified your influencing style as ‘Persuading’, then you could add to your ‘toolbox’ of influencing the ‘Bridging’ influencing style by reading the Step 4 Adapt Page and using that influencing style next time instead.
Just click on the image below to print the PDF version.
Parting Thoughts
We hope our influencing styles questionnaire has been useful in understanding which influencing style best suits you, and how best you can use this to further your influencing impact.
Action: For even more useful content on influencing, check out our ultimate guide on Influencing Skills.
