Stylin’ – The Assertive Way

This article is fifth in a series of 31 blog posts on assertiveness, dating Friday, August 5, 2011 to Monday, April 2, 2012, with a few excursions elsewhere along the way.  Most of the material is based on Dr. Randy Paterson’s Assertiveness Workbook.  There are exercises you can do, either on your own or with a partner – worth the twenty bucks! 


Now that you know aggressive, passive, and passive-aggressive, what about assertiveness?  What is assertiveness, anyway?

First, let’s say what it is not.  Assertiveness isn't a strategy to get your own way, be your own selfish pig, or to make people do what you want them to do.  Au contraire.

No, assertiveness:

• Recognizes that you have the power to choose what you will and will not do, and that ultimately you are responsible for your behavior.  It’s empowering, but challenging, because you can’t blame others for your actions or let yourself off the hook; 
• Recognizes the same in others, i.e., they have the power to choose their behavior too. Assertiveness respects their right to choose and does not attempt to coerce, force or manipulate; 
• Enlists us to identify and acknowledge our thoughts, feelings and desires, knowing that others may not do what we hope they’ll do; 
• Leads us to respect others’ thoughts, feelings and desires too, without feeling like we need to take on their views or do what they would like us to do.  It’s great for identifying and maintaining boundaries; 
• Opens the door for us to relate to others in a more healthy way, with less conflict, less anxiety, and less resentment; 
• Helps us relax around others, as we practice handling situations more effectively, and gain confidence in managing social situations; 
• Helps us respond in the moment, fully present, rather than to be influenced by baggage from the past; 
• Gives us a way to maintain our self-respect in situations, and helps us build an atmosphere in which mutual respect can grow; 
• Builds our sense of self-confidence as we free ourselves from living up to the expectations of others and a need for their approval; 
• It reduces others’ resentment of us as we lay aside counterproductive efforts to control and manipulate them; 

If you want to become more assertive, you’re in for some growth.  And like a baby learning to walk, you will be wobbly at first and make mistakes.

Be patient.  Don’t worry if you over-correct.  Set your sights on where you want to go, and work at it till you get there.

Randy Paterson's, The Assertiveness Workbook has exercises you can do from beginning to end that will help you put feet on your goals.

And you can find a good, free assertiveness test online here.

Next time: the role stress plays in pushing us away from assertiveness, and tools you can use to get the upper hand.  Later, we’ll think through the social ramifications, that is, the effect on those closest to you when you start acting more assertively.

Fine. Whatever. The Passive Aggressive

This article is fourth in a series of 31 blog posts on assertiveness, dating Friday, August 5, 2011 to Monday, April 2, 2012, with a few excursions elsewhere along the way.  Most of the material is based on Dr. Randy Paterson’s Assertiveness Workbook.  There are exercises you can do, either on your own or with a partner – worth the twenty bucks!

Randy Paterson describes passive-aggressive behaviour as the worst of both worlds.  It’s aggressive in that we want to “get” the other person, but it looks passive – “nice” – in many outward ways.

Maybe we fear the social consequences of acting in accord of our feelings.  Maybe we want to save face.  Our moral code may require that we act nicely, so we find subtle ways to express our destructive wishes, maybe even unconsciously.  When we’re passive-aggressive we disguise our bad behaviour so it doesn’t look quite so nasty. Our words sound friendly but our actions tell a different story.  

A pastor worked with a leadership couple who were passive aggressive.  They would maintain a friendly outward posture while working systematically behind the scenes to undermine him, first to disrupt the pastor's leadership (it backfired), and when that didn’t work, to take him down.   That backfired too.  To his face, they would say they loved him and had no problem with him.  Behind his back, they criticized him to congregation members, defamed him through innuendo, and acted as self-appointed spokespersons for an unspecified number of allegedly unhappy people whom they claimed to represent.  That backfired as well, but not before they caused real harm to both the pastor and the church.   

The Profile of the Passive-Aggressive

Here's what passive aggressive behavior looks like:  

• Body language looks passive.  It's unobtrusive, non-threatening.
• Underlying beliefs include not being responsible for one’s actions (we can blame the other person), and that I am entitled to get whatever I can.  If I can deny bad behaviour, then I should be free from its consequences.
• The emotional component of the passive aggressive person often includes fear: fear of being caught being aggressive, and fear of rejection if exposed.  
• Its goal is aggressive, in that it wants to hurt someone, but it’s passive in that there’s an attempt to avoid looking responsible for the harmful outcome. 

People will see through this eventually.  They may not be able to pin certain behaviours on aggression precisely, but their view of us will decline.  Something won’t sit right, and others will sense we’re not all we claim to be.  It may just come down to our looking unreliable, disorganized, inconsiderate or irresponsible.

• Is there someone in your life whose behaviour seems passive aggressive?  
• Can you identify a time when you were passive aggressive?   
• What was your underlying belief?  What was driving it?  

Next time:  A look at assertive behaviour and a little self-check.

On the Offensive: Aggressive Behavior

This article is fifth in a series of 31 blog posts on assertiveness, dating Friday, August 5, 2011 to Monday, April 2, 2012, with a few excursions elsewhere along the way.  Most of the material is based on Dr. Randy Paterson’s Assertiveness Workbook.  There are exercises you can do, either on your own or with a partner – worth the twenty bucks! 


A friend of mine (uh huh, it's always a friend) worked with someone who used an aggressive approach to relationships.  The first time they met together privately, the man handed him the bylaws of another NGO and suggested they use them instead of their own.  Despite the fact that they were professional equals, this guy would maintain that he had the right to act as my friend's day-to-day supervisor.  Whenever there was a matter before the decision makers, no matter how large or small, he would consistently say that he felt “very strongly” about his position.  In conversation, he would stand uncomfortably close to others and maintain direct eye contact with them.  He would flatter, but it rang hollow in the face of his other behavior. 

Randy Paterson in The Assertiveness Workbook provides an overview of aggressive behavior.  It seems to work, at least in the short run: 

• Intimidation works for getting others to do what you want them to do
• People will ask less of you if they’re afraid of you
• You get to feel strong
• You can exact revenge
• You get to blow off steam

While it might seem to work in the short run, the long-term relational consequences are serious.  In the long run aggressive behavior mistreats others, and treats them as objects for our own purposes. 

Aggressive behavior:

• May be cultural, and/or learned from within the family. 
• Ironically, may relate to low self-esteem, leading us to overcompensate with aggressive behavior as we may feel threatened even by minor difficulties. 

Paterson suggests that:

• Aggressive people believe their needs, rights, and contributions are more important than others. 
• Aggressive people often express themselves as though their views are superior and other views are unreasonable or even stupid.  They dismiss the needs, wants and opinions of others. 
• Body language is physically intimidating. Eye contact is fixed and penetrating. The voice may be raised; a person’s physical stance may feel too close for comfort. 
• Aggressive people – and this also applies to workplace bullying, a related issue – fail to see the consequences of their actions.  Aggressive people want to win at any cost. 
• Their emotions may be angry or powerful in the moment, and flush with victory, but followed by shame and remorse for having hurt others. 

Ever work with a bully?

Do you find yourself behaving aggressively, and paying a price in relationships? 

Do you use intimidation, subtle or not-so-subtle, to get your way? 

Ready for more?  

Next time: Passive-Aggressive behavior 

A Field Guide to Passive Behavior

This article is second in a series of 31 blog posts on assertiveness, dating Friday, August 5, 2011 to Monday, April 2, 2012, with a few excursions elsewhere along the way.  Most of the material is based on Dr. Randy Paterson’s Assertiveness Workbook.  There are exercises you can do, either on your own or with a partner – worth the twenty bucks! 

We gravitate towards one of four basic styles of communicating: passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, and assertive.  Randy Paterson breaks it down in an introductory chapter of the Assertiveness Workbook with a look at passive behavior.  Today we look at passive behavior.  Next time, aggressive.  

Would you know passive behavior if you saw it?  Does it mean to sit there, inert? Catatonic?  Or how about this?  Are you a conflict avoider?  The passive skill set avoids conflict at all costs.  People whose default skill set is passive unwittingly give control of their lives to others, whether they intend to or not.  It may be by:

ü  Giving into unreasonable demands by other people

ü  Going along with the crowd

ü  Not offering your opinion until others have offered theirs 

ü  Never being critical or giving negative feedback

ü  Being as invisible as possible.  In other words, avoiding anything that might draw a reaction.  Passive behavior looks down, avoids eye contact, fidgets, squirms and yields. 

Can you think of a time you responded this way?  Does it happen more than you’d like? 

Passive Waters Run Deep:  Underlying Beliefs of Passive Actors 

One comment:  Notice I am not saying “passive people.” We make a distinction between the behavior and the person.  These are skills and behaviors we are talking about.  Behaviors that can be learned and changed.  They are not personality traits we’re stuck with through life. 

This kind of behavior doesn’t come from nowhere.  Whether we will be passive in a given situation is up to you.  It’s a choice you make.  Usually, however, our beliefs drive our behavior, and we operate out of our beliefs more than we reflect about them.  When we’ve been conditioned into responding passively in social situations, it is often because we believe:

ü  Other people are more important than I am

ü  Other people can have control over their lives, but not me

ü  Other people are effective/successful/ worthy/ empowered – but not me. 

ü  My place is to be subservient 

Do you believe any of these?  Deep down? 

What Passives Often Feel

ü  Fear of rejection – For people's whose responses tend to be passive, fear of rejection can lead them to compromise core convictions. 

ü  Helplessness and frustration over a lack of control over one’s life – some psychologists believe that this feeling of helplessness is a major risk factor in developing depression. 

ü  Resentment at the demands and expectations of others – growing resentment began to squirt out in blunt, insensitive statements of truth. 

How do we get this way? 

ü  Some people grow up in very considerate families

ü  Some kids learn to equate being passive with “being good” 

ü  Some of us have had our boundaries violated, either traumatically or repeatedly, and we have lost sight of healthy ways to stand up for ourselves. 

ü  Some of us have been physically abused for trying to stand up for ourselves. 

ü  Some of us have never seen assertiveness in real situations – we don’t know how to be assertive. 

ü  Some of us get beaten into passivity by bullies   

Take a Stand

I walked into the fitness centre the other day and everybody greeted me with a smile.  You might think that happens all the time, but it doesn’t.  It surprised me actually.  Usually people look away and get back to what they are doing.  No, I don’t have B.O.  I don’t have boogers hanging out of my nose.  But I do usually look down, lost in my thoughts.  Plus, I have a great smile, but a resting grump face.  

This day was different.  I kept my head up.  I looked ahead and around me, aware of my surroundings.  To my surprise, regulars I don’t usually interact with greeted me first!  The only difference was how I carried myself when I entered the fitness room. 

How do people respond to you as you go about your business?  Where do you position yourself when you walk down the street?  

Do you walk right down the middle of the sidewalk, like you own the place, expecting others to give you the “road?” Do you walk to the side and step out of people’s way, as if they deserve to be there more than you do?  Do you tend to look down, look away, deferential?  Do you stare people down till they look away?  

Each stance reflects a coping skill.  It’s a way we carry ourselves that we’ve learned over time.  There’s a better way. 

Do you tend to be avoidance-oriented and passive, hoping no one notices?  Are you more aggressive? How about passive-aggressive?  Or are you just plain assertive?  Would you know the difference?  These don’t describe personality styles, though, but a skill set.  You can learn to be assertive. 

Randy Paterson, a psychologist practicing at the Changeways Clinic in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada has written a helpful, accessible workbook on assertiveness called, oddly enough, the Assertiveness Workbook.  

Part One, Understanding Assertiveness, covers foundational concepts like the four different styles of relating (above), the role stress plays in leading us away from assertive responses toward counter-productive ones, the expectations of others, our own assumptions, as well as a better way.  

Part Two of the Assertiveness Workbook focuses on skills we can learn that will help us communicate assertively, both verbally and non-verbally.  We’ll look at things like body language, giving and receiving feedback, and the ever-popular assertiveness in conflict.  And we’ll have a little fun while we’re at it. 

If you’re looking for tools you can use to get your own way, be a bully, or be your own selfish pig, you’ve come to the wrong place.  But if you’ve lost sight of what is a healthy way of relating to others – or, like me, never really learned – maybe this next series will help you.  Let me know! 

By the way, Randy Paterson has a blog too.  Check it out!