My Communication Style

     Wow!  This one really worried me this week.  I have often been told that I am intimidating and aggressive and this is not something that I am proud of.  I have worked on it a lot and have gotten a lot better as I have aged.  I had my husband, son, and a coworker all take this assessment to see how theirs compared to mine.  I did this because my husband knows me better than anyone on this earth, because my son and I constantly but heads and he states that I am intimidating, and because I wanted to get a perspective from a coworker.
     When I did the self assessments, I got a 44 on anxiety, a 66 on moderate, and a 39 on listening styles.  The anxiety score shows that I have a mild anxiety in some situations and that I am at ease in others and that I don't worry a great deal about communicating.  This is true.  I have spent a lot of years trying to refine the art of communication and I have gotten rather comfortable with communicating effectively.  However, I do get nervous when I have to speak to those that I don't already know well and don't have relationships with.
     The score of 66 put me in the moderate range of verbal aggressiveness and said that this showed a good balance between being respectful and arguing fairly.  It shows that I can attack the facts, rather than the person holding the facts.
     The score of 39 on listing styles did not state which group that would put me in.  Reading through the groups, I feel that I would fall between a group one and a group two.  I am very action oriented, which people can find intimidating.  I am also people oriented, which can cloud proper judgment. 
     Much to my surprise, all three people taking these assessments had scores very similar to mine.  Some of them varied by a couple of points, but I was still in the same boxes.  I learned more by talking to these people, especially my son.  I couldn't believe that his scores for me were not way different than mine, since we disagree so often.  I asked him how this could be, since he always states that I am so intimidating.  He said that I intimidate him because I am so smart!  That really made me laugh out loud.  I am apparently not intimidating to him because I am aggressive.  Rather, he knows that I am going to be tough to argue with because I am no fool!  His teenage manipulations won't work on me.  That really gave me a tickle!  He also always tells me that I don't ever listen, yet his scores did not reflect this about me.  When I asked him about this, he said that what he means is that he can't ever get me to change my mind.  What a little scamp!  My husband and coworker both stated that I am a very strong communicator, but that I am also very kind and very fair.  That made me feel good.  My husband said that people are intimidated by me because I am a good communicator and this leaves people feeling unarmed and worried that they will not perform at the same standards that I set. 
     I am glad that these three feel that I am a good communicator.  However, even my own boss has told me that people find me intimidating.  I want to be a real tough gal communicator, but this does me no good if I am unapproachable or if people are intimidated by me.  My communication goals are to 1. Soften up, 2. Listen more than I talk, and 3. Soften up!