Assertiveness →
Responsiveness →
Owl
Eagle
Dove
Peacock
Supportive, stable, and quietly prone to going nowhere.
Where friction shows up
Nobody drives, nobody objects, and problems get managed around rather than surfaced. Both of you will absorb extra work rather than say the workload is unfair. Both of you will notice a third party's bad behavior and neither will raise it. The relationship stays pleasant while the underlying issue compounds.
What to do differently
- Rotate who has to call the decision, and make it explicit whose turn it is.
- Schedule the hard conversation rather than waiting for the right moment, because the right moment does not arrive.
- Say the thing you are pretty sure the other person also thinks. You are usually right.
- Set deadlines that come from outside the pair, so neither of you has to be the one enforcing them.
What not to do
Do not protect each other from information either of you needs.
One line to remember
Comfortable is not the same as working.
Keep going
See your whole team on one map
Run the free assessment with your team and get a shared grid of who works how — then use guides like this for every pairing.
Start with your team — free