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Be “Ask Assertive,” Not “Tell Assertive”

When communicating the decision to others, the real authoritarian style would be to take the army sergeant approach: “Okay, that’s my decision. I don’t care if you don’t like it, just do it.”

That might work for the Army sergeant (I doubt it works very often!), but it will not work for most of us. Instead of “telling” people what to do, we should be asking them to support the decision willingly. That’s the difference between “tell assertive,” when we simply tell people the decision and expect them to execute it, and “ask assertive,” when we ask them to participate in executing the decision.

One of the biggest differences is that ask-assertive people will not only brief everyone on the decision, but also explain how and why the decision was made. Then they will ask everyone to help make it work by willingly executing the decision. Authoritarians will use tell assertive style, not explain the why and how, expect everyone to like it, and enthusiastically execute the decision.

But we know from long years of experience and research that people are much more willing to execute a decision if they know why and how the decision was made, and if they are asked to step forward and help make that decision work.