How to Read Your Listen-Speak Results: What Your Type and Scores Actually Mean

Your CommStyle Listen-Speak result gives you two sets of information: scores across individual listening and speaking dimensions, and a classification into one of nine types based on the overall pattern of your results.

This guide explains both, what the individual dimensions measure, what the nine types mean in practice, and how to use your results to guide genuine development.

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The Two Axes: Listening and Speaking

The Listen-Speak Assessment measures your ability across two primary axes, listening and speaking, and within each axis, several more specific dimensions.

Listening dimensions include attentiveness (how fully present you are in conversations), comprehension (how accurately you understand what's said and meant), empathic listening (how well you attend to the emotional dimension of communication), and reflective listening (how well you check and confirm your understanding), drawing on decades of research into what skilled listening actually involves.^[3]

Speaking dimensions include clarity and organization (how clearly you express what you mean), expressiveness (how engaging your speaking is), listener adaptation (how well you adjust to your specific audience), and conversational flow (how well you navigate the back-and-forth of natural dialogue).^[1] Your scores on these dimensions are then combined to produce a listening strength level (High, Moderate, or Low) and a speaking strength level (High, Moderate, or Low), and the combination of these two levels places you in one of nine types.

High Listening Types

The Engaged Communicator (Listening: High, Speaking: High) brings both genuine attentiveness and effective expression to conversations.

Conversations with Engaged Communicators tend to feel easy and satisfying — the other person feels heard, and the Engaged Communicator's own ideas come through clearly.

Even within this type, most people have relative strengths and weaknesses across the specific dimensions, so it's worth reviewing your individual scores to identify where deepening is most useful.

The Expressive Listener (Listening: High, Speaking: Moderate) listens very well but communicates their own perspective with moderate rather than exceptional effectiveness.

Others tend to feel comfortable opening up to Expressive Listeners, but may not always know what the Expressive Listener thinks or wants, since it doesn't come through as clearly as it might. Speaking skills, particularly clarity and assertive self-expression, are the primary development focus.

The Supportive Presence (Listening: High, Speaking: Low) has genuine listening strength but significantly underdeveloped speaking skills — often described as a great listener and valued for their presence, but struggling to contribute their perspective or make themselves heard in group settings.

Speaking development, starting with basic clarity and self-expression in low-stakes contexts, is the primary focus.

Moderate Listening Types

The Clear Contributor (Listening: Moderate, Speaking: High) speaks with high effectiveness, clear and engaging, but listens with moderate rather than exceptional attentiveness or depth.

Clear Contributors are effective in presentations and one-way communication, but in dialogue may miss things the other person is communicating, particularly at the emotional level. Listening skills, particularly attentiveness and empathic listening, are the primary development focus.

The Balanced Communicator (Listening: Moderate, Speaking: Moderate) has moderate development across both dimensions, enough competence to communicate functionally in most contexts, with no extreme gaps but also no exceptional strengths.

There may be a pervasive sense that something is slightly lost in communication without a specific, obvious problem — the best approach is identifying which specific dimension within listening or speaking scores lowest and focusing development there.

The Quiet Adapter (Listening: Moderate, Speaking: Low) listens adequately but speaks with limited effectiveness, understanding what's going on in conversations more than expressing it, and often feeling that contributions aren't quite landing.

Speaking development is the primary focus, with particular attention to basic clarity and getting comfortable making contributions.

Low Listening Types

The Engaging Speaker (Listening: Low, Speaking: High) is effective, engaging, and clear, but listens with significantly lower attentiveness and depth — often experienced as interesting or charismatic, but others may feel somewhat unheard.

Listening, particularly attentiveness and empathic listening, is the primary and most important development focus, and the impact of developing listening tends to be larger for this type than for any other.

The Emerging Communicator (Listening: Low, Speaking: Moderate) has moderate speaking skills but significantly underdeveloped listening, expressing themselves with some effectiveness but missing significant amounts of what others communicate, leading to conversations that feel partly disconnected.

Listening development across all dimensions is the primary focus.

The Developing Communicator (Listening: Low, Speaking: Low) has significant gaps across both dimensions, and conversations can feel genuinely difficult, both to take in what others are communicating and to express what they want to say.

This is often accompanied by anxiety in conversation, which further reduces effectiveness.

Both dimensions need development, but starting with listening is usually more accessible, since building the capacity to be genuinely present in conversations creates a foundation that also supports speaking development.

How to Use This Information

Start with your type — it gives you the overall picture, the relationship between your listening and speaking that determines your most important development direction.^[2] Then look at your individual dimension scores: within your type, some dimensions will be stronger and some weaker, and the weakest individual dimension within your lower axis is usually the best specific starting point.

And notice what resonates — the type descriptions are generalizations, so pay attention to what in the description fits your experience and what doesn't.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What does a high score mean on the Listening and Speaking assessment?

A higher score indicates that the capacities measured in that dimension are more developed or more prominently expressed in your current functioning.

The specific meaning varies by dimension — read the dimension-specific and type-specific explanations above for what higher scores suggest in practical terms.

What does a low score mean on the Listening and Speaking assessment?

A lower score indicates a development area rather than a fixed deficit. All dimensions measured are developable — lower scores identify where deliberate practice would be most impactful.

The type descriptions above describe what different patterns suggest behaviorally and where development approaches tend to be most effective.

How accurate is the Listening and Speaking assessment?

The assessment is a self-report tool — it captures how you perceive your own functioning across the measured dimensions. Research on self-report psychological assessments consistently finds they're meaningful predictors of relevant outcomes, while also being subject to self-perception biases.

The most accurate use of results combines self-report scores with honest feedback from people who know your behavior well.

This article was developed with oversight from a Certified Public Psychologist (Japan). It's intended for informational purposes and doesn't constitute clinical advice.