What the Expressive / Social Quadrant Tells You About a Candidate
The Expressive / Social Quadrant is the reading for people who talk easily and enjoy company. It is worth reading carefully, because comfort with talking is not the same thing as skill at communicating. The quadrant predicts the work a person will enjoy doing for years.
What Is the Expressive / Social Quadrant?
It is one of four behavioral quadrants. The drive underneath it is always a comfort and interest in talking, telling and being sociable.
People strong here are comfortable with personal disorganization and act spontaneously. They prefer the big picture to the minute details.
What the Expressive / Social Quadrant is not
It does not measure whether a person can communicate, though it usually shows how well they put ideas into words. Strong in a quadrant means comfortable and interested, not always skilled.
What this quadrant helps you evaluate before you hire
Ask a candidate to explain your product to someone who has never heard of it. A strong Expressive/Social type will enjoy the question. Listen for whether the explanation stays organized or wanders off.
Why the Expressive / Social Quadrant Matters in Hiring
A quadrant gives you the general shape of a person before you get into the seventeen individual aptitude traits.
With that many separate readings, a basic overall prediction is easy to lose in the detail.
Talking Is Not Communicating
This quadrant reports comfort with talking rather than the ability to communicate. It usually shows a person can put ideas into words, which is much narrower.
The Paperwork Cost
People who are strong here put off paperwork and would rather avoid detail work. Plan for that before you hand them a role built on records.
Opposites Make Better Teams
Business partners and subordinates make good team partners when the quadrants are opposite. Someone strong here pairs naturally with an Analyzer/Logical who handles the detail.
How the Expressive / Social Quadrant Shows Up at Work
This quadrant has a consistent signature, and it shows in small things.
Watch what someone does with a silence. Watch what bores them, and what they need to hear before they agree. Other testing companies name the same quadrant differently.
| Also known as | Expressive, Socializer, Sanguine or Promoter |
| Essence | Promoting. Verbal, fun loving and full of new ideas |
| Appears | Energetic, extroverted and trendy |
| Openness | Promoter and verbal |
| Action | Verbal and light hearted |
| Fears | Boredom |
| Under pressure | Ridicules |
| Wants | Variety and entertainment |
| Decisions | Spontaneous |
| Annoyed by | Structure, details and routine |
| Security comes from | Building relationships |
| Office space | Personalized and messy |
| Responds to a sales approach | Likes to joke around |
| Relate to them by | Listening, being interested and giving overviews |
| Needs to know before buying | How enjoyable and fashionable it will be |
| In a team | Good at announcing and expressing information |
Where this profile is usually weak
The same tendencies that make this type engaging come with a predictable set of blind spots. Cover these with someone else rather than trying to train them away.
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The Traits Behind the Expressive / Social Quadrant
Each quadrant is built from several individual traits.
Those traits appear on their own charts in the report, color coded to match the quadrant diagram. Six of them feed this one, and which ones you see depends on the assessment.
Talking
The willingness and comfort to speak up and to express oneself, reported on every single assessment that carries this quadrant.
Warm & Sociable
Ease meeting and spending time with unfamiliar people. Low scores predict discomfort in sales and in other people-intensive roles.
Cold Calling
Willingness to make unsolicited outbound calls to strangers who resist. It is the narrower of the two calling readings here.
Calling Comfort
Willingness to make outbound phone calls generally, because the person on the other end is not necessarily resisting the call.
Impulsive
Spontaneous decision making and an appetite for risk. High scorers act quickly, and low scorers can stall in the analysis.
Creativity
The tendency to explore different ways of doing something rather than settling for the way it has been done before.
The Behavioral Quadrants
The parent reading, explaining how all four drives fit together and why the quadrants are always read against each other.
Analyzer / Logical Quadrant
The diagonal opposite of this one, built on strong organization, attention to detail and a careful, methodical way of working.
Best Practice: Read the quadrant first and the six traits second. The quadrant tells you the shape of the person, and the traits tell you which part of it is doing the work.
How to Read an Expressive / Social Quadrant Score
The SL Behavioral Assessment carries the fullest version of the quadrant section.
Read the range first, then the mechanics underneath it.
Low Range
Usually the Quiet Ones
Uneasy explaining themselves out loud, and uneasy in settings with people they do not know.
Medium Range
Neither Quiet Nor Loud
Neither uneasy about speaking up nor especially keen on being much of a chatter box.
High Range
Life of the Party
Likes to talk and to socialize, lacks interest in listening, and procrastinates on doing paperwork.
What to Do Based on the Range
Do not build the job on talk. Keep this person away from work that lives on presenting to people. Their value will show up somewhere quieter instead.
Let the others decide. Nothing here will drive their behavior very strongly, so read the remaining three quadrants before you settle the fit question.
Cover the paperwork. Expect energy in front of people and delay behind a desk. Put the records elsewhere before that becomes a problem.
Quadrant scores only mean something next to each other. A quadrant can read zero and still show some of its related traits as high as thirty on their own charts.
Which Assessments Report the Expressive / Social Quadrant
Both Behavioral Assessments place candidates into the quadrants.
The number of traits reported under this one changes between them.
Individual Contributor (IC) Behavioral Assessment Test
Built for individual contributors and support staff. It reports three of the six: Talking, Warm and Sociable, and Impulsive.
Sales & Leadership (SL) Behavioral Assessment
Built for sales, leadership and supervisory hiring. It reports all six traits, which makes it the fuller reading for those roles.
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Where an Expressive / Social Profile Fits Best
A person strong in this quadrant tends to enjoy these kinds of work for a long time.
They also tend to do them well.
Promoting
Networking
Sales presenting
Relationship selling
Lecturing
Teaching to groups
Public relation handling
Announcing
If any of these situations sound familiar, this assessment is for you
Frequently Asked Questions
This is one of the four behavioral quadrants the assessments report. It covers a comfort and interest in talking, telling and being sociable, and it predicts the kind of work a person will enjoy for years.
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