Leadership / Life Skills: Assertiveness

Assertiveness is a style in which you openly communicate your thoughts without forcing them onto others.

Four communication modes are part of an assertiveness continuum:

• Passive: your wants and needs are avoided or denied
• Passive-aggressive: you want to push your own agenda without seeming to or you say what you want indirectly
• Assertive: you communicate your thoughts openly and directly without aggression 
• Aggressive: you push what you want aggressively, with no thought of the other person

For example, if you and your friend are discussing plans for lunch and your friend asks, "Where would you like to go for lunch?", a passive answer might be, "I don't know, you choose". In this case, you prefer to leave the choice totally to your friend, as you either don't mind at all where you go or else you feel you cannot offer your own opinion. However, if your friend makes a choice and you don't like the venue but don't want to say so directly, you might switch to a passive-aggressive response and say, "Well, I suppose that's okay. Wasn't that a bit boring the last time we went there?" You are giving a strong hint that the choice is unsuitable, but you do so in an indirect way; you might find yourself agreeing to go to the venue even if you prefer not to. Passive-aggressive responses are often manipulative responses. An assertive response instead would be, "No, I don't like that venue as I thought it was boring there the last time we went. What about the place we went to on your birthday?" In an assertive response, you openly state what you think without fear of ridicule. An aggressive response in this scenario might be, "That's a terrible venue. I want to go to the place we went to on your birthday and if we don't go there then I am not going." In an aggressive response, you push your point of view. There is often a fine line between aggressive and assertive responses, as sometimes you may need to be assertive repeatedly to protect your boundaries, which could seem like aggression, but when you are assertive, you avoid showing anger and pushing your own point of view. You might never change your mind about a specific point of view, but you are comfortable if others disagree with you and you are comfortable when you disagree with others.

Assertiveness includes the ability to say, "No", for example, if someone asks you if you would like to go for coffee and you prefer not to, then say no. If you are assertive when you communicate with others, you are less likely to mull over bad choices you feel you were coerced into and that you shouldn't have made.

You may find that the more you make use of an assertiveness style, the higher your self esteem may be.

Jesus said, "But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes' and your 'No' be 'No.' Whatever is more than these is of the evil one." (Matthew 5:37 WEB)

Link to related articles:

A follow on article: Assertiveness: the ability to say "No"
I discovered this website which has articles about required leadership skills: Leadership Skills You Need