Read time: 3 Minutes
Assertiveness is a type of behaviour that helps you express your needs in a healthy manner. Being assertive can have its advantages but don’t be overly assertive as it is unhealthy. If that becomes a habit, you can become selfish, a person worrying about his own needs & not looking out for others.
It is important to be assertive “in situations where the issue is important and when confrontation is agreeable,” but it is also important to be less assertive “in situations where the issue is unimportant and confrontation is not appropriate” (Kammrath, McCarthy, Cortes, & Friesen, 2015).
For example, when giving a job interview, if the interviewer asks you about the salary expectation that you might have, saying that you might be comfortable between the ranges of X & Y would be an example of assertiveness. You’re letting them know that it will only be possible for you to take up that position because of your certain qualifications & that you deserve it (politely, of course).
In other words, it’s important to know when & where to use this skill & not be assertive all the time. A cognitive-based model of assertiveness training has been proposed by Vagos and Pereira (2016), which begins with these steps:
-Teach the difference between assertiveness and aggression
-Teach how to recognize the “cognitive and emotional products” that lead to aggression
-Teach how to change these cognitive and emotional factors into factors that will encourage assertive behaviours instead of aggression
The best way to learn assertiveness is to learn by:
1. Rehearsing what key points you want to talk about before going into a big meeting or interview
2. Prepare a script as written dialogue helps remember you better
3. Prepare a possible question(s) list which will help you prepare answers to different questions
The key is being “adaptively assertive” rather than “aggressively assertive” and finding the right situations in which to be assertive. In other words, one should use assertiveness simply to secure equality for themselves, and never to take away from someone else.