Strategies to Develop Your Assertive Style
By: Sorin Dumitrascu
Tags: Planning, Leadership, Management, Strategy, Assertiveness

Strategies to Develop Your Assertive Style

How to Be More Visible and Successful

Photo by Prazisss on depositphotos

Building Your Style

Three strategies form the foundation for building your assertive style. Once you’re comfortable with these strategies, you can add additional elements to bolster your style. The strategies are:

1. Being proactive — Look for assignments where you can make a contribution and then volunteer to play a role. Seek a role that is responsible for a specific, measurable component of the project. After all, you want to receive credit for the work you accomplish. You’re also proactive when you anticipate future needs or issues and take steps to address them. Supervisors and co-workers alike will respond well when they realize the benefits of your actions and behavior.

2. Being accountable — You’re being accountable when you personally ensure that you follow directions and carry out actions expected of you by others in the workplace. Accountability also includes being answerable to others both for successes and problems when you have assumed a responsible role.

3. Being an active participant — Active participation occurs when you take part in assignments or assume your share, or more, of the workload. One way of increasing your participation is to ask questions to discover what assignments are available, and then request those you would like to be involved with.

You can also demonstrate that you are an active participant in essential activities by making sure you carry your share of the workload in the office. You even take on additional work when you can and when it helps other managers complete important assignments.

By applying these strategies, you can build your assertive professional style.

Enhancing Your Style

Building a foundation for your assertive style is the starting point. Just as you took the responsibility to develop your assertive style, you can also take the lead in enhancing that style. The following are three primary guidelines for doing this:

1. Act decisively — You are decisive when you make clear choices about when and how to act in business situations. For example, if a staff member has handled a customer poorly, you might act decisively to identify the stage of the customer problem and the resolution required. You may also determine how to act toward a subordinate in a difficult situation. This decision can vary with each situation.

2. Act loyally — There are two distinct ways you can exhibit loyalty in a business setting. First, you can play the role of loyal opposition by ensuring all options are presented. Once a decision is made, however, you then need to be an active supporter of that decision in the workplace.

3. Act credibly — When you’re credible, others in the workplace will believe your words and actions. You are believable when others think you’re truthful and the information you provide is as complete and accurate as you can make it. You enhance your trustworthiness when others believe you’ll do what you say you will. Your actions demonstrate your credibility.

Enhancing your assertive style beyond your established foundation can be satisfying. You can achieve this by acting decisively, credibly, and loyally in workplace situations.

Roles that Help Strengthen Your Style

To strengthen your style, you need to assume additional roles — roles that carry greater accountability and offer greater recognition for a job done successfully. There are three primary roles you must play in strengthening your assertive style:

1. Problem solver — Actively seek situations where you can be involved in identifying problems and play a part in designing solutions. Your assertive style is evident to others when you actively identify problems at an early stage, before they become major problems. As a problem solver, you’re part of the solution when you offer viable options for addressing and resolving a problem.

2. Decision maker — Seek situations where you can be involved in gathering vital information and offer informed opinions that will facilitate reaching a viable decision.

3. Rule maker — Seek situations where you can play an active role in establishing the policies and procedures that dictate how work is accomplished. You don’t need to act as the final arbiter of the rules, but you do want to have input into the rule-making process.

An important aspect of the rule-making role is to ensure that the rules are fair and that everyone involved understands them. If you try to ensure that rules are fair to everyone involved, other employees will appreciate your efforts. You should also make it your mission to see that rules are understandable to employees. That means no legalese or government regulation-type verbiage.

When you play your roles well, others — and the company — will benefit from your assertive actions, and you’ll be satisfied that you’ve again taken the lead to strengthen your assertive style.

Sharpening Your Style

To best prepare for your future as an assertive business professional, you should learn from your past experiences in building, enhancing, and strengthening your assertive style. To sharpen you assertive style, you need to be more visible and successful. The strategies for achieving this are:

assess how you demonstrate your assertive style, modify your actions, and revise your assertiveness plan.

Assess how you demonstrate your assertive style

An initial strategy for sharpening your style is to conduct a self-assessment. That is, evaluate your style as you exhibit it in the workplace today. To do this, you must first decide what to assess. Develop a checklist of the traits you display as a result of the steps you went through to build, enhance, and strengthen your style.

Try to understand how you exhibit each trait in the workplace. After deciding what to assess, you should develop questions to ask yourself and others. For example, ask yourself if you are acting proactively or if you are being accountable, decisive, and credible.

Modify your actions

You modify your actions based on the answers to the questions you asked during the assessment of your current style. You may decide that you don’t need to stop any actions, but that you do want to add a new one. This may lead you, for example, to request a new assignment — with accountability — on an interdepartmental project.

Revise your assertiveness plan

This action follows logically from assessing where you are now and modifying your planned actions. To apply it, you should

1. Revise your milestones — Do this, as needed, based on the assessment you conducted and any planned actions that you may have changed. Your milestones are periodic measurements of your progress as you develop your assertive style.

2. Revise your timetable — Your timetable helps you track how well you’re following and maintaining your plan. Keep your timetable current so you can accurately monitor your progress. And revise your timetable if you’ve modified planned actions or revised your plan’s milestones.

3. Schedule the next assessment — Finally, your plan should specify when your next self-assessment will occur. It’s essential to periodically assess your assertive style. Use the results to modify planned actions and revise your overall plan.

Once you’ve taken steps to prepare for the future, you’ll be well-prepared to pursue and sharpen your desired assertive style.