Assertiveness: You Can Do This!

Any emotion that you WANT to experience more can become more natural if you play the role, or practice it, more often.  Let’s look at assertiveness.

In assertiveness, you are able to stand up for yourself or your position from a place of confidence. When you practice assertiveness, you are more likely to get your own needs met and your questions answered without anyone else ‘losing.”

For example, do you ever find yourself in a situation where someone asks, “Are there any questions?” and no one speaks? But you have a ton of questions?  Guess what – it’s very likely that others have concerns or questions similar to yours, but no one wants to be the one to extend the meeting or admit they aren’t completely clear.  99% of the time when someone asks a good question, other people in the room feel relieved because THEY are confused about the same issue, but could not find the courage to raise their hands.  When you do, you will be seen as a little bolder, a little more confident… and you’ll often affect how things roll out.

Or how about when a manager says, “we need a couple people for this task force?”  Do you think, “It will be a waste of time.  I don’t have the energy,” or do you raise your hand to get involved?  When you say Yes to small opportunities, there is risk, e.g. you can mess up, fail, get blamed for what’s not working, and have extra stress in your life.  On the other hand, there is an upside:  you’ve also just put yourself in a situation where you can influence the final decision, learn something new or learn it before others do, make new contacts outside your primary job, and get experience being a spokesperson — all benefits of being assertive!

You can’t win if you don’t play.

The Ohio Lottery for years has used a marketing tagline that says, “You can’t win if you don’t play.”  So get in the game.  Start small. Speak up in situations within your team before you stand up in front at the next all-company meeting.  Or maybe volunteer for a short-term project team to get your feet wet before you try to get on that six-month task force.  Practice, practice, practice pushing yourself out of your comfort zone in tiny ways, even at home or in your community.

And then notice how much stronger your assertiveness muscles become. Notice how others start to look to you to be their “voice” in confusing situations.  See how your willingness to take little risks can help you be more comfortable taking big ones.  And finally, notice how those are all leadership behaviors, that will help you in all areas of your life.

Remember: Leadership is not about a title.  Anyone can be a leader who practices even a bit of risk-taking and uses their personal capital to help improve the culture or conditions in the workplace.  And the more you stretch your assertiveness muscles, the more you grow.

You’re never too old to learn and grow (I hope!)

Our ability to grow is directly proportional to our ability to entertain the uncomfortable.

–Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life

A recent email exchange within one of my coaching groups addressed our discomfort with being stretched outside our comfort zone.  One of my colleagues, Carole, shared this recent story, which I share her with her permission:

“A few weeks ago my 97+ year old father-in-law died after the loving attentions of my mother-in-law could not sustain his life any longer. Although attempts by my husband and his numerous siblings have been made over the last few years to set up an alternative living arrangement, my mother-in-law was not ready to leave her home but has always been insecure about being alone (you can get locked out of the house just going out to your car to get something when you’re visiting because the doors are always set to the locked position).

Her daughters (one local, the other about an hour away) had been spending a lot of time at the family home as Pops’ days wound down and, for the first several days after the funeral, one daughter literally slept in the same bed with my mother-in-law to allow her to be comfortable staying in the house. Then, the following week, the day came when no one was available to spend the night (several in a row, in fact).

After the first night alone, I called my mother-in-law to see how she had fared. What she said was, “I did all right.” She talked about how she had gotten herself to sleep and how she had handled awaking in the middle of the night. And then, after a pause she said, “I had to prove to myself that I could do this.”

I was instantly struck by the fact that she had probably never anticipated that, at age 89, there would still be new challenges to face and to learning to experience!”"

Carole’s story has been sitting with me for over a week, and I recently revisited it when one of my clients, a 30-something manager who just finished his MBA and has been promoted into a senior manager role, spoke of his discomfort with the frequent change in his workplace, saying, “You worked in Corporate America for a lot of years, Jim.  What’s your guess on when this is going to level off for me?”

I just laughed.  Yes, I’m sorry, it was very uncoach-like of me, but I just laughed maniacally for a minute.  And when I could catch my breath again, I managed to squeeze out one word in between my spasms of laughter:  NEVER!

And then I told him this story about Carole’s mother-in-law.  “this is not about work,”  I promised him.  “It’s about life.  Your experience in the world depends very much on how you view change — is it the enemy, to be resisted and fought at every turn…. or is it, simply, the Way Things Are?”

He withdrew the question.