Work Style Assessment Questions: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Work Style Assessment Questions, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Practices that may help
- Read assertiveness and responsiveness quickly
Observe whether someone talks more than they listen (assertiveness) and whether they show emotion openly (responsiveness).
Social Style Matrix: Adapting to How People Communicate - Assess readiness task by task, not person by person
Rate competence and commitment for the specific task in front of them, not the person overall.
Situational Leadership, Made Practical - The Coaching Habit: Seven Questions to Be More Coach-Like
Michael Bungay Stanier’s seven questions — from "What’s on your mind?" through "What was most useful for you?" — are a practical system for coaching conversations that takes less than a minute to learn and a career to master. The framework is practitioner-derived from behavioral coaching practice; its mechanisms are grounded in autonomy support, self-determination, and the generation effect. The questions work because they shift the cognitive labor back to the person who owns the problem. - Design a personal question list that matches your current growth goals
Build a short list of active questions that track the behaviors most relevant to your life right now — not a fixed template.
The Morning Questions - Reframe passive questions as active questions
Ask "did I do my best to...?" rather than "how was my...?" — the word "try" changes what the question measures.
The Morning Questions - Social Style Matrix: Adapting to How People Communicate
The Social Style Matrix, developed by Merrill and Reid, categorises people along two dimensions — assertiveness and responsiveness — producing four styles: Driver, Expressive, Analytical, and Amiable. Matching your communication approach to someone’s style reduces friction and improves collaboration. The evidence is primarily observational and practitioner-based; the model predates more rigorous personality frameworks but remains widely used in coaching and management training. - Prepare questions you genuinely don’t know the answer to
Ask about the unwritten realities of the role — the things no job posting reveals.
Informational Interviews: Career Research That Builds Your Network - The Morning Questions
Marshall Goldsmith’s morning questions are a daily active question routine in which you score yourself each morning on whether you "did your best" to pursue specific values-based commitments the previous day. The practice reframes self-monitoring from passive measurement ("how did X go?") to active responsibility ("did I try?"), which research on active questions suggests produces greater engagement and honest self-assessment. The evidence base is practitioner-clinical; large-scale trials are limited. - Ask what the person already knows before offering your assessment
Ask the person to evaluate their own performance before giving yours.
The Feedback Sandwich: Why It Doesn’t Work and What to Do Instead - Adapt to your manager’s communication style
Match your manager’s preferred level of detail, pace, and channel — not theirs to yours.
Managing Up: Practical Skills for Working with Your Boss
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’m about to meet someone important for the first time and I have no read on them yet
- I’ve quietly filed each person on my team as strong or weak, and then I’m baffled when my "strong" one flounders on something new
- I’ve tried other people’s checklists and they always track things I don’t actually care about right now
- When I check in on myself it’s always "how did the day go," and the answer always seems to ride on things outside my hands
- I’ve got the conversation booked but I’m staring at a blank page of questions, worried I’ll waste their time asking things I could’ve Googled
Related concerns
- Assessment Of Social Skills
Observe whether someone talks more than they listen (assertiveness) and whether they show emotion openly (responsiveness).
Read assertiveness and responsiveness quickly
- Questioning Model Of Assessment Social Work
Test social predictions by asking a small sample of others what they actually think — instead of assuming.
Survey Experiments: Testing Beliefs by Asking Others
- Skill Assessment Social Work
The Social Style Matrix, developed by Merrill and Reid, categorises people along two dimensions — assertiveness and responsiveness — producing four styles: Driver, Expressive, Analytical, and Amiable. Matching your communication approach to someone’s style reduces friction and improves collaboration. The evidence is primarily observational and practitioner-based; the model predates more rigorous personality frameworks but remains widely used in coaching and management training.
- Social Skills Assessment
Observe whether someone talks more than they listen (assertiveness) and whether they show emotion openly (responsiveness).
- Social Skills Questions For Students
Most shy people don’t lack social instinct — they lack a few specific skills in conversation pacing, questions, and listening.
Practise specific conversation micro-skills
- Social Skills Training Assessment
Observe whether someone talks more than they listen (assertiveness) and whether they show emotion openly (responsiveness).
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.