Leaders who are passive or aggressive tend not to be seen as effective, influential, and impactful leaders. Being aggressive can instil fear in the people you lead and doesn’t create a good environment for your teams. If you are passive as a leader, you may find people walk all over you, and do not have trust in your leadership abilities.
Misconceptions about introversion may cause some people to think that someone who is quiet is passive. However, being introverted doesn’t mean you are passive by default. Whilst some people who are introverted might lack assertiveness, so do some extroverted people too.
Whether introverted or extroverted, assertiveness is associated with being a good leader, and if you find it difficult to assert yourself, let’s explore why that might be.
Common reasons why someone may not assert themselves and the effects
When coaching, some of the reasons I regularly come across when as to why someone does not assert themselves include:
- Fear of rejection
- Self-doubt
- Stress and overwhelm
- Does not like confrontation
- Not wanting to draw attention to themselves
- Worried about saying the wrong thing
- Told they are aggressive when they are in fact being assertive
Here is what happens when leaders don’t assert themselves:
- People ‘walk’ over them
- Other people take credit for their ideas
- Not viewed as an effective leader
- Seen as weak and failing to take charge
- Poor performance may go unchallenged
- De-motivated teams
Be assertive, not passive, or aggressive
Recognise the differences between passive, aggressive and assertive behaviour. Psychologist Dr Randy Paterson offers a good analogy that explains the differences. He likens it to being on a stage. For the passive person, the world is allowed on the stage, but the passive individual’s role is to be the audience and supporter for everyone else. For the aggressive person, they’re allowed on stage, but they want centre stage and spend most of their time shoving others off. For the assertive person, everyone is welcome on the stage.
Which category do you fall into? If you are the audience/supporter, or constantly pushing everyone off stage, adapt your behaviour so that you are up there on the stage with everyone else. The following tips will enable you to do so:
Address self-doubt and the fear of rejection – if self-doubt keeps you from asserting yourself, listen to the podcast episode in the link above for tips to address it. Coaching will help you to overcome this as well as helping you to overcome a fear of rejection.
Tone of voice – don’t speak too quietly or too loudly. Be specific, clear, and respectful. Speak firmly and authoritatively and maintain this when others try to interrupt.
Body language – be mindful of your posture. Don’t be too rigid or too slouched and relaxed. Maintain eye contact without glaring, and don’t look stern.
Confidence – say what you have to say with confidence. Even if you don’t feel confident, other people won’t know you’re not unless you make it glaringly obvious.
Decisive – be decisive in the way you talk and don’t use apologetic language.
Do not make assumptions – don’t assume that people will know what you need or want. How will they know if you don’t tell them?
Be timely – don’t let the opportunity to say what you want to say pass you by, and then regret not saying it. Interject as appropriate and say what you want to say.
What are the situations and environments that you lack assertiveness in? Developing an awareness of this means you can put appropriate measures in place. For example, with many of my clients, they recognised that they weren’t assertive enough in Board meetings where their ideas and proposals were not well received by authoritative figures.
Leading up to the meetings, they became anxious, worried, and stressed and self-doubt and imposter syndrome would rear their head. This meant they would go into the board meetings feeling stressed and lacking confidence before they even spoke.
I coach them to overcome imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and stress, as well as how to sell their ideas and handle objections from the Board. As a result, they learn how to confidently assert themselves in these situations.
Do you find it challenging to assert yourself and struggle to hold your own when in the presence of people who are more dominating? If so, not addressing it means your voice will continue to go unheard.
These tips will not make you more assertive overnight. However, consistently putting them into practice will make it easer for you to confidently adopt assertive behaviour.
Are there certain situations and environments where you find it more challenging to assert yourself than in others? If so, what do you do to hold your own?
First published on LinkedIn.
If you are an introverted woman and a senior leader and want to increase your confidence, influence and impact, take my free assessment and get a report identifying areas to develop. You can take the assessment here.