A Coaching Power Tool Created by Meiling Canizares
(Career Coach, BRAZIL)
We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
The opposite of self-assertiveness is self-abnegation–abandoning or submerging your personal values, judgment, and interests. Some people tell themselves this is a virtue. It is a “virtue” that corrodes self-esteem. Nathaniel Branden (Born in 1930)
Concepts Definitions
Assertiveness is the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive. In the field of psychology and psychotherapy, it is a learnable skill and mode of communication. (…) Assertiveness is often linked to self-esteem. (Wikipedia)
Assertiveness is also understood as the courage of taking charge of your own life, by knowing what you want, being aware of your rights and respecting the rights of the others.
Typical characteristics exhibited by an assertive approach:
Aggressiveness is the quality shown by the people who act with more assertiveness than needed in the situation. It can be described as an approach in social interactions that causes damage or unpleasantness upon the other(s). Aggressiveness may be a result, in some cases, of defensive reactions, in other cases, of goal-oriented reactions.
Typical characteristics exhibited by aggressive approach:
Passivity is the quality shown by people who act with less assertiveness than the situation requires. Can also be described as an approach in social situations that shows submissiveness.
Typical characteristics exhibited by passive approach:
The Continuum: Passivity < Assertiveness < Aggressiveness
There is a continuum that goes from passivity to aggressiveness, in terms of the amount of confidence you use in the interactions with others:
Assertiveness is the balance between the two extremes that can be harmful. Passivity can be harmful for the individual, aggressiveness can be harmful for others in interactions with the individual.
Study Cases
From aggressiveness to assertiveness:
Pedro is a Senior Manager at a large company. He has 4 coordinators reporting to him and he reports to a Senior Director. His professional ambition is to become a Director in the future, in one of the subsidiaries of the company he works for.
He lost a few opportunities in the last 2 years due to a lack of a ready backup for him. His responsibilities are very specific and complex and he needs to prepare a successor in order to be ready to move without creating a disruption in the business.
He hired a career coach to help him to plan and prepare for his future growth.
During the sessions, he described himself as a natural leader, someone who is accountable and takes responsibility for the results. He never acts in a passive way. On the other hand, sometimes he may be extremely tough with his team, peers and even with the Directors of other areas.
He describes himself of being true and transparent. He always has his opinions about the subjects and has clarity about his values. When he judges the board of directors requires him to do something that he understands as “against his values or convictions” he simply refuses it. For him, there is no polite way to say “no”. He is very straight to the point.
He is known by others as a very committed employee, very competent, but difficult to deal with.
He describes himself as assertive, results-oriented and not that popular with everybody.
During the coaching sessions, he found out that he had an underlying belief that was affecting his career growth: he believed that he should continue to be results-oriented, no matter what, and because this was a priority for him, he has been dedicating lots of efforts on delivering results at any price – regardless to the people´s feelings and acceptance to the way he acted.
He described himself as someone who would prioritize the task to be done instead of political alliances. In fact, he thought that building alliances and dedicating to improving internal networking was waste of his precious time to deliver results. With this belief, he focused on execution & delivering results, damaging sometimes his internal image and relationship.
He also related diplomacy or political savvy to deceit and dissimulation. With that belief, how could he invest in developing these new abilities? Again, it would be a waste of time!
In the sessions those beliefs have been raised to his awareness and he had the chance to think about them, in terms of advantages and disadvantages. Cleary the beliefs had been very useful for his success in career and in the current position. Would they be useful for continuing his career growth?
He found out that being results-oriented would serve him, but he would have to learn how to reach the goals taking care of people´s reactions and feelings. He would also have to learn how to develop political savvy – because this is one of the critical skills for accessing the executive lawyers of the organizations. He also reframed his perspective on diplomacy – being diplomatic doesn´t always require deception or dissimulation.
Even though he described himself as “assertive”, sometimes during the sessions he gave examples of aggressive behaviors and communication style.
At the end of the coaching process, he was aware of his interaction and communication style, and was able to think before acting, choosing the best approach to respond using assertiveness and not aggressiveness.
From passivity to assertiveness:
Olivia was a manager in a multinational company who was pleasant with everybody, including her team, and obedient to her superiors and the board of directors.
She has been with the company for many years, grew in her career internally and was known as a “nice person”. She never confronted her superiors, she was always smiling and rarely say “no” to someone´s request for help.
With her team, she was a good listener and gave freedom and space for them to work as they wanted. Everything would flow perfectly if it wasn´t one of her subordinates. He was a very insubordinate person, who refused to follow critical rules of the company. He was also performing poorly and creating problems internally. He needed limits and a direct orientation from his manager. But his manager was the friendly and nice Olivia.
Olivia gained awareness on her lack of assertiveness facing this difficult situation in her team, then decided to look for a coach.
During the process, she looked for new ways to behave with her team, externalizing more her opinions, providing direction and feedback and demanding more in terms of performance. She implemented small changes in the way she approached team meetings and individual conversations, making the expectations clearer for everybody. When invited for the directors´ meeting, she started to present her ideas and defend them, if she believed she had a point.
With these changes in her approach, she was able to shift the way she was seen by her superiors and received a promotion. She also had to terminate that person in her team who was a low performer, and this gave the correct message for the rest of the team, which was formed by highly engaged people. Her team felt the decision was fair to the person, to the company and to them.
Coaching Application
Clients who may have the tendency to behave in aggressive or passive modes may benefit from reframing their perspectives.
From passivity to assertiveness:
When this is the case, it is necessary to help the client to improve self-esteem and self-confidence.
For this purpose, we may ask some of the following questions:
Some exercises to increase the ability of being assertive:
From aggressiveness to assertiveness:
When this is the case, it is necessary to help the client to be less dominant, imposing and learn how to care about the wellbeing of others, in social interactions.
For this purpose, we may ask some of the following questions:
Some exercises to increase the ability of being assertive: