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Merrill-Reid Model

Discover your leadership style

Merrill-Reid Test Instructions

To lead well you need a good understanding of your own personality and in high-performing teams that same level of understanding extends to team members – understanding of themselves and of other team members. In teams where people understand and support each other, there is very little friction.

Please take 5 minutes to answer all questions – making a decision at every stage.  There is no ‘middle option’, but you can grade your responses ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’. The questions explore your preferences on two scales, Extraversion vs Introversion and Task vs People. Your answers will combine to position you on the matrix – you will see your position when you have completed and submitted your answers.  Based on your answers this tool will position you in one of the following quadrants: Driver, Expressive, Amiable or Analyst.

This simple online assessment tool is loosely based on the Merrill-Reid Social Styles model – as explained in Neil Jurd’s ‘The leadership Book‘.

1. General behaviour
2. Under stress
3. General speech
4. Style of speech
5. Questions
6. Body movements
7. Eye contact
8. Opinions
9. Meeting others
10. Decisions
11. Risk
12. First impression
13. Group response
14. Power
15. When others talk
16. Response under pressure
17. General attitude
18. General behaviour
19. General knowledge
20. Emotions
21. Topics of speech
22. Body posture
23. Facial expressions
24. Tone of speech
25. First meeting
26. Decision basis
27. Use of time
28. Supervision
29. Attitude to rules
30. Praise, positive feedback
31. Sharing opinions
32. Relationships in groups

Possible quadrant definitions

Expressive

The people focussed director, or the ‘Expressive’. Expressives will also work at a fast pace, but will engage more with others, and will have a less structured approach. They might be described as impulsive. Overall, these people will enjoy working with other people.

Driver

The task focussed director, or the ‘Driver’. These are people who work at a fast pace, who seek to control the activity and are willing to take risks with people and tasks. They will tend to direct people and become frustrated with inaction.

Amiable

The people focussed consultor, or the ‘Amiable’. These people will be happier working at a more relaxed, slower pace, and will focus on keeping the relationships with people within their team positive. They are less likely to push change and more likely to fill a supportive and understanding role. They work in a consensual way and will prefer to avoid conflict where possible.

Analyst

The task focussed consultor, or the ‘Analyst’. The analysts will also work at a slower pace, but because they like to get both the detail and the structure right. They plan well and tend to be highly organised, but are less concerned about the relationships that they form with their team. At times, they might appear to be cautious – even a bit bureaucratic – but will take a structured and logical approach to things.

Your next step

This was a very rough test, more questions would have generated a more robust result – and if you are interested in a more detail psychometric assessment for you or your team, this is something Leader-Connect can do for you – we often use psychometric profiling in support of leadership coaching and executive team development.  We tend to use the very detailed 16 PF tool for this work.  You can also find much more about the Social Styles model and other aspects of leadership and team development in the best-selling  ‘The Leadership Book’ by Neil Jurd OBE.