CHAPTER 6
Assertiveness
“Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.”
—CHARLES COLTON, ENGLISH CLERGYMAN AND AUTHOR
Assertiveness is the ability to maintain our boundaries and express our needs clearly and directly. It includes being able to express emotions that we are feeling and offer opinions that may be unpopular or run counter to the “group think.” Although being assertive means asking for what we want, it does not mean we always get what we ask for. Assertiveness has gotten a bad rap in some areas of society because it is often confused with aggression.
Healthy assertive people, while being clear about their wishes, respect the rights of others. As much as assertive people maintain their boundaries, they respect the boundaries of others. Assertiveness allows for a difference of opinion without an attempt to beat the other person into submission or force them to come around to another way of thinking. It allows for a win/win situation, something that aggression does not. It is possible for two quite assertive people to maintain a close friendship and respect one another while disagreeing with each other. Often, people who stand up for their rights are respected for their actions, and are thought of more highly by others. However, since there is often a fine line between assertiveness and aggression, people who are respected are keenly aware of the boundaries of others and take great care to respect them.
Aggression
Aggression, on the other hand, demands winners and losers. The aggressor does not respect boundaries, and wishes to impose his or her will on the other party. Although aggression may achieve immediate goals, it leaves an ugly residue that will often come back to haunt the aggressor. The victim of aggression often feels bullied, resentful, and angry at the outcome and will often look for opportunities to undermine and “get back” at the aggressor. That is why aggressive people are generally resented and have few real friends. Although it may appear that they command respect, especially if they are in positions of power and authority over others, their hold on that respect is tenuous. The knives will be out should they fall from that position.
Passivity
While aggression is at one end of the standing-up-for-yourself scale, passivity is at the opposite end. Passive people are the proverbial doormats, letting others walk all over them. For whatever reason, passive people choose not to express their needs and desires and are often imposed upon by others. These people become victims in our society. Passive-aggression is another maladjusted place to be on the standing-up-for-your rights scale.
We all know people who are passive-aggressive. They appear quiet and undisturbed. Although it appears that they are going along with everything and nothing bothers them on the surface, underneath they are boiling, feeling the barb of every injustice that they perceive has been foisted on them. When finally they can't take it anymore, they explode with anger and rage. Passive-aggression is often a mechanism that is learned by people who are in vulnerable positions and have been punished for expressing their feelings and opinions. Often this behavior is learned in childhood when children learn that it is not okay to express anger or certain types of feelings, and their opinion doesn't matter. If they don't get help, the child will carry that passive-aggression into adulthood and use it with his or her spouse, superiors, friends, and others.
Adults, as well, can learn to bury their emotions and thoughts when they see no alternative to doing so, or when they are constantly beaten down for expressing them. Someone with an aggressive, overbearing boss or domineering partner may learn to keep their thoughts and feelings inside. When passive-aggressive anger finally boils over, it can cause a great deal of damage. Angry outbursts have often resulted in destroyed relationships, as well as lost friends and jobs. Career opportunities have often been severely curtailed or lost altogether, because of someone experiencing uncontrolled anger. It is crucial that passive-aggressive people learn to be assertive, to express themselves much earlier in situations than they feel the need to. This is behavior that can be learned with practice.
Healthy Assertiveness
There are as many effective ways to be assertive as there are personalities. While we have a vision of an aggressive person being loud and obnoxious, a quiet, soft-spoken individual can stand up for his or her rights as well as the outgoing and gregarious one. Teddy Roosevelt's maxim, “speak softly but carry a big stick,” makes it clear that we are not to confuse quietness with lack of firmness and intent. Assertiveness requires an awareness of feelings and a good level of self-regard. We need to believe that our opinions and feelings matter before we will feel free to express them.
A certain level of independence is also important. The less dependent we are on the approval of others, the less fear we will have of offending them by being open, honest, and stating our wants. Because we usually can't blurt out the first thing that comes to our mind when someone says something contrary to our strongly held beliefs and values, a good measure of impulse control comes into play; otherwise we are apt to react out of anger or say something we will come to regret later. The person who manages to keep his or her cool in an angry and tense situation comes out the winner.
The world is full of people who will take advantage of us and cross our boundaries if we allow them to. To be able to make our own way and to get what we want out of life, we need to be able to consistently maintain our own boundaries.
“Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.”
—PHILIP DORMER CHESTERFIELD, BRITISH STATESMAN
Don's Story
The topic of the workshop was “Making an Impact on the Job.” More than forty participants had turned out to hear the speaker, who was billed as a leading expert on how to get noticed and advance in the workplace. His credentials were impressive. Don Maxwell had presented to large corporations, governments, and educators across the nation. He had been a guest on popular talk shows and drew a crowd wherever he went.
Don's delivery in front of the group was smooth and polished. He paused in all the right places to let his point sink in, and put emphasis on the areas he thought were important. Don stood tall, delivering his presentation with energy, enthusiasm, and confidence. He took turns making eye contact with all the participants, and made sure they all felt he was talking to them as individuals. His well-tailored suit, style, and demeanor all pointed to a man who was assured and successful. If any member of Don's audience were asked to imagine what the speaker's upbringing had been like, they would likely visualize a bright boy who had excellent grades, was good in sports, was popular with girls, and had the support of loving parents.
Their picture of Don's past could not be farther from the truth. Before he finished his presentation, Don asked his audience to try to imagine what his childhood and early adulthood had been like, based on what they had just seen and heard. At the end of the presentation, Don got personal and gave his audience a brief summary of his life. As a child he was skinny, awkward, and shy. His father, a tradesman, drank heavily. It was only later in life that Don learned that his father was an alcoholic. Although he was not abusive, he was totally absorbed in his own problems and had little to do with Don and his older brother Jason. The mother suffered from bouts of depression for periods of time. When she was feeling better, she was able to demonstrate affection for her sons, but when the depression hit her she withdrew into her own world. Don remembers feeling alone, frightened, and powerless, not having anyone in the immediate family to depend on during these times, except for his brother, who was only two years older.
There was one person they could rely on: Uncle Chuck on their father's side. Chuck was a war hero who had started his own business after the war ended and became quite successful. Even though he was only about five foot six, to the boys he was seven feet tall. Seeing that his nephews lacked parental direction, Chuck took them under his wing. Sensing Don's lack of self-confidence, he enrolled him in judo at the age of seven.
The class bully at his school had been picking on Don and some of the other smaller kids. With Chuck's encouragement, coaching, and judo training, Don finally worked up enough courage to fight back. He remembers the day clearly. He was walking down the hallway when the bully came up from behind and knocked his lunch bag out of his hand, spilling the contents on the ground. He then asked Don what he was going to do about it. Without giving it much thought, Don reached over and knocked the bully's books out of his hand, sending them skidding down the hallway. There was laughter from behind them. The bully, shocked and enraged, started to take a swing at the upstart. Don, expecting this, grabbed his arm and threw him to the floor. Shaken and hurting, looking stunned and quite sheepish, the goon slowly got up and walked away with his head down. He did not bother Don again.
Word spread quickly, and the shy, bullied kid became an instant hero, earning respect from both his classmates and teachers. While he was gaining self-confidence in taking care of himself physically, speaking up in public was another matter. Whenever the teacher asked a question Don froze, barely able to stammer out an answer in a weak, timid voice. When he told his uncle about his problem, Chuck proposed a plan. He told Don to visualize throwing the bully whenever he had to speak in public. He was to get a firm picture in his mind of being strong, confident, and sure of himself before starting to talk.
The first time he tried this, the teacher and other children in the class were silent for a moment, surprised by the strong and confident tone in Don's voice. The more he practiced the easier it got, and eventually the shy kid came to look forward to public speaking. He became confident enough in his own abilities that he ran for president of the students' union, finishing just behind the winner, the most popular girl in school and a beauty contest winner. Don was proud of his effort, knowing that he had given it his best shot. Uncle Chuck had always said that there was no shame in losing if he had done his best.
Don went to college and became a psychologist. Although he enjoyed helping people one on one, his passion was speaking to groups of people. At every opportunity he volunteered his speaking services to community groups and agencies. Although he wasn't making any money out of these activities, he saw them as an opportunity to hone his craft and gain valuable speaking experience.
Twenty years after graduating from college Don is a recognized speaker, specializing in staff development workshops and seminars. Although he no longer has to give free talks, he still volunteers to talk to school groups. Don loves to tell classes his “bully story” and sees himself in the faces of many of the quiet children sitting at the back of the class. His hope is that his message will give some of them the courage they will need to avoid becoming victims in life. He considers that even if his talk encourages them to do one thing they were afraid to try before, he will be successful. His theory is that once people stretch past their comfort point, they can never go back to the way they were.
Techniques for Increasing Assertiveness
- Practice asking for what you want. Don't ask for permission or excuse yourself, just ask directly. Tell yourself that your time and opinions are as valuable as anyone else's. Even if you don't really believe it, work up the courage and do it. Ask directly at least once per day. Start with situations less intimidating and work toward the more difficult ones.
- Pay attention to the language you use. Work toward cutting out pauses, “ahs,” and “ums.” These words are fillers and make you sound indecisive. Slow down speaking if you have to, but practice making your words sound firm and strong.
- Call people by their first names, not their titles unless it is normal expected practice to refer to someone by their title (talking to your doctor). Calling someone by a title when not called for gives them a position of power over you. Look people in the eye when talking to them.
- Make it a habit to speak up and ask for compensation when you find something wrong with a purchase you have made, whether it is a meal in a restaurant, an item of clothing, or an auto repair. Ask for evidence that work on your auto was done, such as seeing the old parts.
- Don't let specialists intimidate you into not asking for clarification or explanation because you think they will see you as stupid. It is up to them to simplify things so that you understand, not up to you to learn their technical expertise. Keep asking for explanations until you are comfortable and fully understand what they are saying.
- Never speak up for yourself when you are feeling out of control, or anger will be clearly audible in your voice. When you do this, you give the other person control over you. Wait until you can speak calmly and firmly. Remember, you are not attacking the other person, you are simply asking for what you want. If you don't get it, move on and try again. Focus on the fact that you were not afraid to try and did your best.