Hello!
When you encounter a conflict and need to communicate your thoughts, feelings, limits and expectations do you react overly pushy or wimpy with your words, demeanor and attitude? If you consistently respond like a hard-nose, you can feel like a winner that's in control. Yet in the long-run, you can end up working and feeling alone. If you consistently respond like a welcomed doormat, you can end up working and feeling resentful and victimized. Neither of these ends of the spectrum are healthy or empowering. For most situations, you must respond somewhere in the middle, which requires assertive communication skills. Assert yourself today!
The three behavior patterns of aggressive, passive and assertive responses are learned skills and behaviors, not "who you are", which many people think. While developing assertive communication skills may be easier for some to acquire, they can be learned and evolved with practice and most importantly, self-esteem and confidence. You can approach your boss, colleagues, family, friends and anyone with clarity, composure and confidence, if you learn how and try.
Whenever you encounter a situation that you know requires assertive communication, ask yourself, "What is the right thing to do?" and be certain to ask clarifying questions. These two tactics will aid your responses to become proactive instead of reactive. Depending on the situation, the following phrases can develop your assertive communication skills and empower you to respect others and to respect yourself:
- I understand your request, and here's my concern (attack situation, not person). Let's figure out some other alternatives?
- Tell me how you arrived at your figures. I can't agree with the results, and I'd like to hear your views.
- From your perspective, please let me know what I'm expected to do.
- I would like to talk for about (state time frame) to resolve a conflict that I have about (state facts of situation).
- Please educate me, what did you mean when you said...?
We need to evolve our attitudes into believing that assertive communication is not making waves and that most passive and aggressive behaviors are not effective for building healthy realtionships and high-performance teams. We can remove the hard-nose or doormat within us because being an assertive communicator is the right thing to do.
To your empowerment,
Nancy Stampahar |
