The 3 Most Dangerous Communication Styles

The concepts in this post come from Danny Silk’s book, Keep Your Love On: Connection, Communication, and Boundaries. This book has really rocked my world. I wish I’d read it 20 years ago. A short, easy read, it’s one of those books that you want to read every year. I cannot recommend it highly enough. You can get your own copy here. This is not an affiliate link, I get no commission or any other benefit if you click and buy. But you certainly will. It’ll transform your relationships!

What are the three most dangerous animals in the world? The ones we turn into when we communicate from a place of fear, because they damage or destroy our connection with other people. For many of us, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. Many of us grew up with families that communicated this way, and we think it’s normal. It’s all we know so it’s what we do.

But it’s not normal. It damages our connection with those we love. What if you knew there was another way to communicate? What if there was another option?

The premise of healthy communication is this:

“I cannot control another person. The only person I can control, on a good day, is myself.” – Danny Silk

The goals of healthy communication, then, are not to force or manipulate the other person into doing what we want. The goal of healthy communication is first and foremost to understand. Powerful people are not afraid of someone else’s point-of-view. They’re not afraid of someone’s disagreement. They are comfortable and bold being themselves, and they are not afraid to let others be themselves.

But when we get into fear, we start communicating from a motivation to get our needs met, instead of to understand. How many of these unhealthy communication styles have you used? I know I have used them all.

A disclaimer: The word-pictures describing these communication styles are simply to help us understand the intangible by making it a little more tangible. These caricatures describe how the person is behaving, not the person’s identity. We are not what we do.

Suppose the husband is driving too fast around a curvy, one-lane mountain road, too fast for the wife’s comfort at least. She has 4 choices of how to respond.

1) Unhealthy Aggressive Communication – The T-Rex

The T-Rex yells and screams. A big bully, the T-Rex uses intimidation to win the argument and get his or her way. Despite the volume and the bluster, the T-Rex really feels powerless and afraid. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t bully the other party. They don’t trust the other person to care about their need. Terrified their need won’t be met, they use intimidation to get their way. The message of a T-Rex communicator is, “I matter, you don’t matter.”

The wife in our example could choose to play the T-Rex and yell at her husband, using intimation and name-calling, “Slow down, you idiot! You’re going to get us killed! What kind of moron are you, driving like that!”

2) Unhealthy Passive Communication – The Goat

The goat is the opposite of the T-Rex. The goat is just as powerless and afraid of not getting his or her needs met, but instead of hiding that fear with bluster and blather like the T-Rex, the goat hides that fear with silence. Not saying anything at all. They would rather keep the peace then risk saying what they know needs to be said.

They misunderstand Bible verses about sacrifice and dying to self. They’re confused by Matthew 5:9, which reads, “Blessed are the peace makers,” not peace keepers.

The goat’s message through their communication is, “You matter, I don’t.” Counter-intuitively, goat’s and T-Rexes often end up in relationships together, because they both believe the T-Rex matters, and the goat does not. The goat sacrifices body parts (i.e., more and more of their identity) to the T-Rex to keep the peace.

“At the end of the day, the goat ceases to exist, and the T-Rex is still hungry.” – Danny Silk

A wife playing the goat in our example would just white-knuckle the drive, not saying anything. She’d swallow the fear, close her eyes, pray, whatever, anything but start the confrontation that needs to happen.

3) Unhealthy Passive-Aggressive Communication – The Chocolate-Covered Dragon (CCD)

This one is the most dangerous of all, because they look so good to everyone except the person in relationship with them. CCD’s look great on the outside. They’re chocolate after all. What’s not to like? But the other person is the only one who knows how they act in private, when the dragon comes out.

Chocolate Covered Dragons will have a great conversation with you. They’ll contribute, pretend to understand, and appear to agree whole-heartedly. But later, they won’t do anything they agreed to, denying ever making a commitment. They throw it all back on you for “misunderstanding” the conversation. You begin to wonder, “Did we really say that? Am I remembering right? Am I crazy?”

The truth is, no, you’re not crazy and, yes, you’re remembering correctly. The CCD is twisting the facts (and they know it) to manipulate getting their way.

The CCD feels powerless and terrified their needs won’t get met. But they don’t want to go all T-Rex because they know that makes them look bad. Keeping up appearances is very important to CCDs; they are terrified to let the real “me” show. So by lying and manipulation, they make you look bad to get their way and get their needs met.

The CCD’s message to the world through their communication style is, “I matter. You matter; no, not really.”

Back to our example. If the wife of our crazy driver chooses to communicate like a chocolate-covered dragon, she won’t say anything. The whole evening. There won’t be any harsh words, but they’ll be plenty of harsh non-verbal communication.

The husband picks up on it. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“Nothing.” But the atmosphere communicates daggers.

“Seriously, what’s the matter?”

“If you loved me, you would know.” And she makes him pay.

Or there’s another choice.

4) Healthy Assertive Communication – Royalty

The Bible says we are kings and queens (Proverbs 25:2, Romans 8: 17-37, Ephesians 1:18). So often we don’t act like who we really are. We need someone to teach us how to act like kings and queens. In Christian lingo, we call that “sanctification.”

Kings and queens are powerful. They know who they are, so they aren’t threatened by who someone else is. Being royalty, they have an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset. They aren’t threatened or jealous of someone else’s success or happiness. If I’m acting like royalty, then in our relationship, I get to be me and you get to be you.

Powerful people communicate assertively. They don’t either hide or bull-doze. They don’t say one thing while intending another. Their message to the world through their communication is, “I matter. You matter.” And they mean it. They live it. They can disagree with someone while still honoring them.

Instead of telling the other person what to do and feel, an assertive communicator talks about how they feel and what they need. They say things like, “I feel _____ when ____. I need to feel ____.” For example, our wife of the crazy driver, choosing to communicate assertively, might say something like this:

“When you drive like this, I feel scared, and my fear makes me angry. I need to feel safe. I need to feel like you’re protecting me, not threatening me.”

Then she trusts her husband to care about her needs more than his own adrenaline rush. Powerful people communicate how they feel and what they need by “asserting” it – stating it. They trust the other person to meet their needs, and allow them do to it on their own terms.

Regardless of how she communicates, our crazy-driver husband now has a choice. He can respond:

• Like a powerless T-Rex bent on his own way, unable to meet the legitimate needs of another. “Hey, baby, don’t worry, I’ve never gotten into an accident and I know every inch of this road. When you get in the car with me, it’s all sit down, shut up, and hand on!”
• Like a powerless goat, terrified of someone’s displeasure because they believe the lie they have to earn love. “I’m so sorry. I’ll never speed again. In fact, maybe you should drive. You’re a much better driver than I am.”
• Like a powerless chocolate-covered dragon, unable to truly meet the needs of another, but coy enough to pretend to. “Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, I was going too fast there, wasn’t I?” Then they slow down. But the speed creeps back up slowly. If the wife says something again, they act hurt and put-off, twisting it to make it the wife’s fault. “I am going slower! Why won’t you meet me half-way? There’s just no pleasing you!” Technically they didn’t lie, they are going slower. They’re going 59 instead of 60.
• Like royalty, assertively. “Oh, does that bother you? I’m sorry. I want you to feel safe. Of course I’ll slow down.” And they slow down and keep it down.

But what do you do when you’re doing your best to be assertive, and are constantly met by a T-Rex, goat, or chocolate-covered dragon? How does a healthy assertive communicator respond to these unhealthy communication styles?

How to Assertively Respond to an Aggressive T-Rex

Royalty does not tolerate being bullied. They simply do not accept such treatment. They freely give respect to others, and they expect to receive it. Here are some practical ideas.

Meet them in a public place, like a coffee shop or fast-food, where you pay upfront. In public, there’s social pressure on them to not start yelling. And because you paid up front, you don’t have a check to pay holding you there. You can get up and leave if necessary.

After an unheeded warning (just one), say something like, “I want to talk with you about this, I want to spend time with you, but you cannot talk to me like that. We can try this again whenever you’re ready. Let me know.” Then get up and leave.

Here are some other examples.

• “I want to talk about this with you, but when you yell and scream I feel disrespected, and I need to feel valued. We can continue this conversation when you’re ready to treat me respectfully.” Then walk out of the room and close (not slam) the door.
• If you are physically abused, or your spouse is breaking things, call the police. Every time. Royalty does not tolerate disrespect.

How to Assertively Respond to a Passive Goat

Ask questions. Wait for their answer. Get comfortable with uncomfortable silence. Don’t break it, wait for them. Empower them with the question, “What are you going to do?” In extreme cases, you may have to say, “I really value your opinion. I want to understand how you feel about this. I need you to take responsibility for expressing how you feel. Will you share with me?”

You’re inviting them into a place of real intimacy, of being truly valued and loved.

How to Assertively Respond to a Passive-Aggressive Chocolate-Covered Dragon (CCD)

This one can be the hardest because no one else gets it. You’ll have to be prepared to accept only you and Jesus knowing you’re not crazy. Often, writing things down during a conversation with a CCD can help tremendously, because then they can’t twist it and cast doubt on your memory.

The big thing to communicate to a CCD is, “I really want to hear your heart. So let’s table this until you’re ready to tell me what’s really going on.”

How about you?

The reason understanding is the #1 goal in communication is because our ultimate goal is creating a healthy connection with the other person. This does not mean we never disagree or become the goat! On the contrary, it means we disagree whenever we need to. But we do it respectfully, whether the other person does or not.

Guarding our connection means confrontation, not appeasement. I talked about confrontation skills in this post based on a Danny Silk video. The link to that video is in the post (again, not an affiliate link).

Does this resonate with you? Tell us in the comments how you or someone else communicated assertively and it made all the difference. And please share if you think this would bless someone else.