The concept of assertiveness is a foundation stone in managing people. A sound grasp of the concept of assertiveness will give every Manager a clear focus and the language tools to communicate effectively with team members, colleagues and Management.

The Assertive Manager

Assertiveness is about mutual respect, I respect you and I respect me. Assertiveness is achieving what you want to achieve without hurting or antagonising others. For this reason, the assertive person is focussed on understanding the other person, so that they can ensure a good outcome for both parties. The assertive Manager does not talk down to the other person nor do they feel the need to attack. They are also not submissive, afraid of upsetting others or trying to please everyone.

An assertive Manager wins the respect of each member, and of the team. They are self-confident, and communicate in a clear, positive, direct and respectful manner. Indeed, the Manager behaves in a way that demonstrates that they are respectful to everyone. They will never speak disrespectfully of anyone, even if they are not present. There is no gossip, bad-mouthing or putting people down.

The Aggressive Manager

Aggressive people are those that are concerned only with their own rights, interests and wants. They may well behave in a way that hurts the other person, or that puts the other person down. An aggressive person may do this intentionally to attack, or they may do it because they do not care about the impact of their behaviour on the other person.

The aggressive Manager will:

• Feel the need to dominate others or feel the need to win

• Not see the other person’s view – either they ignore it altogether or they put it down ‘Your way is stupid …this is the sensible way …’

• Not care how their behaviour impacts others – they are concerned only with their own feelings

• Believe that they should always control a situation and that they are never wrong

• Be intolerant of mistakes – and become irate

• Uses blaming language and puts the other person down

• Not look at the outcome; they will not see that their behaviour is not working!

The Submissive Manager

Submissiveness is putting the rights of others over yours. It is doing things that others want you to do, not because you choose to, but because you feel you HAVE to.

The submissive Manager will:

• Be hesitant, uncertain and indecisive

• Try to please people, and therefore will change their minds frequently

• Believe that they should not speak their minds, either because they do not have confidence in themselves or they do not want to upset a relationship

• Feel put down by other Managers and may feel victimised

• Will not accept responsibility for his or her behaviour – it’s not my fault

• Over react to others, and be easily hurt or insulted

• Readily go along with other people's decisions, even when adversely affected by them, because they feel they HAVE to

• Do what they do not want to do – and complain behind the scenes

• Find great difficulty saying NO

Effective Assertive Language

In managing people, the Manager needs to use positive, definite language to set out their expectations and to give direction. A Manager can give a direct order assertively. In doing this, the Manager talks about the performance or the behaviour, not the person:

This is the procedure, this is why it is important, and this is your target for one hour. That is what I expect you to achieve. If you do that you will have done a good days work!

These are the times for breaks. It is important that everyone sticks to these, and this is why they are important… So I expect everyone to keep tightly to these times.

Your current performance is … The next step is to improve this area… what I need you to do is… and the result of that will be…

It is even more assertive to ASK rather than tell, to develop the team member further.

This is the goal, how do you think we can achieve this?

This is your goal, what you did was... Is there a better way of doing this?

Assertiveness is the path to effective people management.