How to be More Assertive at Work
Assertiveness at work can be a valuable asset but it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. With these little changes, you can make your voice heard in an effective way.
Have you ever finished a meeting and wished you’d spoken up? Or taken on extra work because you feared saying no would make you look difficult, demanding or high-maintenance?
Assertiveness is the ability to speak up for yourself in a way that is honest and respectful. When you’re assertive at work, you ask for what you want, you talk openly about what you need, and you effectively advocate for yourself without being pushy.
Being unable to speak up at work can have long-lasting negative consequences. It can lead to stress and burnout and it can prevent you from developing the skill set that’s necessary to propel your career forward.
Being assertive isn’t always easy though, particularly if you’re more shy by nature. But the benefits of speaking up at work can be life-changing, and it can be simpler than you might think.
Recognise your value
The first step towards becoming more assertive is to nurture a respectful and accurate picture of yourself, so you can clearly see your value as an employee. Take a step back and think about what you contribute to your workplace. Start by paying attention to your strengths, skills and qualities by asking yourself the following questions:
🔸 What good qualities do I have?
🔸 What strengths have I shown in the past?
🔸 How might others describe me in a positive way?
If you struggle to name your good qualities, try asking a close friend or family member or try a questionnaire, like the online VIA Survey of Strengths, which you can do for free here.
2. Prepare and practice
You’ll have less chance of freezing up with fear in that meeting if you’ve planned and practiced what you want to say. You can prepare in the safety of your journal, your friendships, or your therapy. Ask yourself, what do I want to say? How do I want to say it? What is my goal?
Remember that assertiveness is a skill and, as with developing any new skill, it helps to start small. If you have trouble speaking up in a meeting, you may also struggle to, say, choose which movie to watch with your friends when you’re going to the cinema. So learn to speak up when you’d prefer to see a rom-com rather than a horror. And when you return to the office, you may find it easier to speak up there, too. This isn’t about being demanding, this is about flexing your muscles and practicing to speak up about your preferences in a way that is honest and respectful.
3. Know your boundaries
A lack of boundaries at work will cause you to take on extra projects, priorities or problems that aren’t yours to carry, and this can lead to stress and burnout. Learning to clarify and respect your own boundaries is an important step towards building the confidence to be more assertive.
For example, you might set the boundary that you won’t help co-workers until you’ve finished your own work. Or maybe you decide that you will step away from your computer at lunch or take all of your allocated holiday. By setting boundaries for yourself to follow, you’re taking a stand without having to shout about it.
2. Learn the difference between aggressive and assertive
It’s a common misconception that assertiveness means being pushy, difficult, rude and disrespectful of other people. Being assertive does’t have to be any of those things: being assertive just means valuing and communicating your point of view in a way that is clear and direct, while still respecting others.
You can continue to be a kind, likeable person while communicating clearly. Brene Brown in her book, Dare to Lead, says ‘Clear is kind, unclear is unkind.’ For example, in situations where a co-worker has missed the mark, what tends to happen if we struggle with assertiveness is that we speak ‘around’ the core of the issue or we ‘hint’ at the problem and hope that they will pick up on our disappointment. We may think this is being kind, but all we’ve really done is left someone in the dark because we haven’t fully expressed ourselves. It’s unkind to them - they don’t know there is an issue. And it’s unkind to you - you will continue to be frustrated or disappointed.
5. Watch your language
The littlest words can make the biggest difference when it comes to assertive communication - think: um, like, just, errr, sorry. These words can discredit your authority and make your boundaries sound weak. Try to use I statements like "I want", "I need" or "I feel" to convey basic assertions and get your point across. For example, “I want to go on this training course because I think it will help me to progress in my role."
Also, try using verbs that are more definite and emphatic when you communicate. This will help you to send a clear message and avoid "sugar-coating" your message so much that people are left confused. To do this, use verbs like "will" instead of "could". For example, “I will be turning my out of office on while I’m on holiday”
6. Reframe your fear
One of the main things that can prevent us from being assertive at work is the worry that we'll create distance or conflict with our co-workers. When we feel this way, it can be easy to fall into unhelpful thinking patterns where we catastrophise or try to predict the future. When you catch yourself doing this, try to reframe the thought and tell yourself a more helpful and realistic story. For example, if your thought is "If I don't help my co-workers they'll think I'm not a team player", try reframing it to: "Just because I'm too busy to take on extra work, it doesn't mean my co-workers will think badly of me”
