Hello and Happy New Year! We’ve enjoyed our Christmas and New Year break and now we’re ready to face 2014 with renewed energy and vigour! And to start with this year, here’s the second half of our blog about assertiveness.
So, how do you learn to be assertive? Part 2
Some people are lucky, they are naturally assertive. Most of us, however, fall into one of the other categories – passive or aggressive. If you are in either of these two groups, here are some methods you can use to improve your assertiveness.
Know your rights and value yourself
Remember that you are as important as everyone else. Your rights, feelings, thoughts, desires and needs should be considered as relevant as your work colleagues and even your bosses! But, be careful not to start believing they are more important than other people’s – they are not!
Make sure that you protect your rights. If you start to allow people to ignore your rights, you soon find them being trampled all over. You have the same right to be treated with respect and dignity as all the other people you work with. And once you allow people to treat you badly, you may find it more and more difficult to put a stop to it. You know the scenario – you offer to do a job for someone once and it slowly ends up being your responsibility permanently!
Be sure about your wants and needs and make sure you ask for them to be satisfied
One of the reasons why most people find their needs are not met is because they don’t actually make it known what their needs and wants are. And, you simply cannot wait for others to recognise what you need – you could be waiting for ever. For example, there’s no point in complaining about being given a deadline that’s not achievable, if you don’t explain that to your boss. If you explain and he still wants it in a time that’s unrealistic, then you’ll have to assert yourself a bit more. But, in the first instance, simply letting the relevant people know your feelings is the first step.
Express and receive good and bad feedback in a positive manner
If someone offers you a compliment, accept it graciously and thank them for taking the time to offer feedback. Do the same for negative feedback too, as long as it’s justified. After-all, if you want to learn and improve this is one of the best ways to do it. However, if you feel the negative feedback you are receiving is unjustified, you must say so and explain in a calm manner why you feel that way. Never shout, get angry, defensive or make personal comments about others – it will reflect badly on you.
Learn to say No!
This can be one of the hardest words to say, especially if you’re having to say it to your boss! But, you really should learn how to do it. Take this example, you are asked to prepare a report for your boss by Friday. It’s now Wednesday evening and you know that to complete the report to the best of your ability you’ll need at least a week. You should advise your boss of this and ask what they’d like you to do. If you can, offer up a win-win situation. For example, if you’re happy to do so, you could offer to stay behind or work at home, for suitable compensation of course, to complete the report on time. Or you can advise that you’ll have it done on time as long as you have your bosses’ authority to push all the other work you have to complete to the bottom of the pile while you finish the report.
Okay that’s it for this week. Next week, in the final part, we’ll discuss assertive communication techniques.
