The EQ Big Five: #4 - Assertiveness

Moving along to #4 in the list - Assertiveness.  This one seems to be one of the most difficult to adjust either way but Sara provides great direction for suitable adaptation concerning Assertiveness.

Other related episodes:

• The EQ Big Five:  #1 - Emotional Self Awareness
• The EQ Big Five:  #2 - Empathy
• The EQ Big Five - #3 - Self Regard

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Transcript

John Broer: 0:05

Are you ready to talk about assertiveness? Because that is number four in the big five skills of emotional intelligence and that's what we're going to be talking about with Sara Best today. If you go into the show notes, you will see the first three episodes talking about emotional self-awareness, empathy, self-regard, and today we're going to talk about assertiveness, and I have to tell you what this one speaks to me, probably because I know that I have the trait of assertiveness in a pretty extreme way and it's something I need to be able to dial up and dial down appropriately as a skill of emotional intelligence. So let's jump in. The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode. Well, we're back with Sara for part four of our five-part series. Sara, are you ready to jump into assertiveness? I think that's the next one on the docket, is that correct?

Sara Best: 1:23

It is John, let's go, let's talk about assertiveness. It's an important one for so many reasons.

John Broer: 1:30

So let us know why. Why is assertiveness part of the big five? Why does it show up there?

Sara Best: 1:37

Assertiveness, John, is part of the big five because it has everything to do with communication that is clean and clear and upfront. And I mean just in my own experience and I'm sure you've had this experience too, John, when we're working with our clients, communication and the misperceptions and the bad experiences with communication are some of the chiefest complaints we get, and my take on that is where things get stopped up is people are not saying what they're thinking, they're not sharing their thoughts and ideas. This is going to sound like a broken record to our regular listeners because it goes back to we have to have a degree of psychological safety so that people do feel free to say what they think, to challenge the status quo, to say something outlandish.

Sara Best: 2:32

But when you think about assertiveness, it's this unique balance of saying what you mean, what you say like not beating around the bush and not saying it mean. Say what you mean, mean what you say and don't say it mean. And it's this fine line, like this mid-range between what we would consider aggressive or over assertive behavior and not saying anything, which is where I think a lot of people struggle.

John Broer: 3:05

So this reminds me, Sara, you've been. I love the imagery of the dial and ever since we started with emotional self-awareness and empathy and self-regard the first three this one really seems to be on a dial. The dial just really seems to be a good representation for this. Because in our work, when we talk about being proactive versus responsive in the PI assessment we can measure whether a person is highly proactive, if they're more situational or if they're more responsive by nature. I'm just going to use myself as an example. If I'm not careful as a Captain, highly proactive, my dial could be way up. Right, I mean I could be. My assertiveness could be so great where I may jump into a conversation not really thinking it through and not thinking of its impact on others if I'm not careful, but if I don't understand assertiveness as a skill of emotional intelligence, is that correct?

Sara Best: 4:05

I would concur with that, John. Let's say this way, if you had a high degree of assertiveness, so let's say, in that proactive nature you're higher in dominance, lower in patience. Those are the two things that contribute to a propensity to speak or insert ideas into a conversation. If you have high degrees of assertiveness, you're going to be self-assured, confident and show up as a person who's pretty clear and direct. If you're overly assertive, so a step above that, you could be aggressive and therefore harmful, not received well.

John Broer: 4:49

That makes total sense to me because- so let me give you again, I love examples and I can only really speak from my own experience. Early in my career and I would say that as I was sort of developing my self-awareness and and the need for adaptation, there were times where I would speak up or say something and assert myself and it was poorly timed and it was, I would say, probably I'm not really inappropriate in in such that I wasn't really taking into consideration the impact on other people around me. So I was demonstrating very low emotional intelligence where, in that case, dialing it back as hard as this is to do, dialing it back and saying you know, in my head my thought bubble is I really want to say something, but I think this could totally throw everybody off. It would. It would land incorrectly. I'm gonna dial this down, I'm just going to, I'm gonna listen instead of speak up.

John Broer: 5:46

Mm-hmm and I- There's so many things that I've I said early in my career that I wish I could have taken back. But to me, that's where I'm realizing that my natural inclination to say something needs to give way to a greater degree of consideration on the impact. Like you said, mean what you say, say, say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean. I may not think I'm being mean, but the impact could have just that impact, that it could have that result and I have to be careful of that. So so that's what I'm when I think about using the skill of assertiveness.

Sara Best: 6:24

To me, in my natural state, I need to dial it down. Because I could other, it could otherwise a land completely incorrectly and knowing and being aware of how it it affects other people is such an important part of your, your ability and willingness to dial that down. We talked about that in the self-awareness episode. We would say too if, if you are overly assertive and directive, it is just a default drive of yours in its extreme form, so it's not unnatural for you. We've been in meetings together, for example, and I'm the same way. You know a conversation is going in a certain direction. You can bet that it's not going to go too far before I, you know, insert my thought or idea.

Sara Best: 7:10

Okay and I might be very you know gracious about it, but I'm still gonna assert the thought or the notion right as I I have to. I think about the people who have less of that assertiveness. Okay and so their dial is typically turned down all the time, and I'm actually surrounded by people like this. They're much more responsive.

Sara Best: 7:31

Okay, they're higher in patience, they're lower in dominance. Their idea doesn't have to win. They don't want to create a ruckus, they don't want to put people out. And the example I always use is you know, if we go to dinner and one of my kids orders a meal and it doesn't come out the way it was asked to be prepared, mm-hmm, I'm already like raising my hand to call the waitress back or the wait staff back and they're like, "no, no, no, no, mom, it's okay, oh my gosh that's so funny yeah.

Sara Best: 8:02

It would just be better, in their case, to not rock the boat then then to say a statement that is actually true and factual, at the risk of upsetting somebody or making it more difficult for somebody. Right so that's kind of the lower end and it's neither one is good or bad. Right, but you know, the question is what result does that get you? What result does that get you?

John Broer: 8:24

so. So if, if we look at somebody who, by default, their assertiveness dial is dialed down it's on the lower side, they're at a tape. My adaptation needs needs to be dialing it down. Their adaptation would mean dialing it up, which which can can feel equally uncomfortable. There's a, there can be a fear, I guess. I guess my fear would be my, my thoughts, ideas, my input is not being heard. On the other side of the spectrum is I don't want to hurt this individual. I want to be careful that I don't step into the danger. I don't hurt. You know that's the wrong phrase. I don't want to harm this person, but I don't want to harm this person. How does that person adapt and sort of overcome that concern?

Sara Best: 9:10

Well, one simple idea comes from Brené Brown, who says clear is kind, so clear is kind. When we articulate our position on something, we let people know our idea, even if it's different than theirs. We provide clarity and we give them something to work with. So I think you know one unique way to look at a lower assertiveness. The unproductive low assertiveness would be. You know who are you ripping off of good information and good ideas because you're too concerned that you might not say it right or that someone will take it poorly, or that, for all the reasons you mentioned to John, people can look at somebody with low levels of assertiveness. They don't talk and they could say, gosh, they really don't care.

John Broer: 9:58

Right.

Sara Best: 9:58

So I think the idea is to believe. You have to believe that what you are going to contribute adds value and that you're worth adding that value. And then you have to stretch, you have to stretch yourself. I don't know a whole lot about that, john, though, because I'm the opposite, and so are you? Yeah, we have to stretch the other way.

John Broer: 10:19

Right.

Sara Best: 10:19

So what if that's your idea? It doesn't have to win. You don't have to be heard every second, I think, as a Persuader. What's interesting is my dominance is high, but my extroversion is higher.

John Broer: 10:31

Right.

Sara Best: 10:32

And I have noticed that when things happen that risk me looking bad, I can snipe really easily.

John Broer: 10:41

Hmm, okay.

Sara Best: 10:42

So I have maybe unwritten expectations, and when they aren't met by a person's behavior response, I sometimes get really sharp with my words, like a machete. Hmm, and that's not good. That's the default and more aggressive end of assertiveness, and it's built out of lack of emotional awareness, like you know, not recognizing what's really going on.

John Broer: 11:10

Going on around you, well, so? So let's think about that. If you and I are not careful and we're in a room, I mean, we could suck the oxygen right out of a room pretty easily, hmm, and at the same time, I know you and I both can get can get if we're not aware of the circumstances, can get uncomfortable with that silence and feel like gosh, somebody, please talk, somebody, say something. You know this, this silence is killing me when, in reality, I'm just dialing that down and leaving the space and leaving the room for somebody who may be naturally low in assertiveness, to come forward, because otherwise, though, they'll be reticent.

Sara Best: 11:49

Yeah, that's not only a skill, John, but it's a choice.

Sara Best: 11:53

It's a conscious choice we can make to provide opportunity for others to shine, to share their thoughts and ideas, to trust that there might be a better idea out there and to be okay with that. If I can take us in a different direction, what I've come to notice inside a few of our client organizations is the idea of psychological safety, and trust is really really tied up into this idea of assertiveness. And it's very easy for a leader to say why didn't you come to me? Why didn't you come to me and tell me this? And right away we identify there are two areas of challenge. One is that leader may not be aware that it's not safe for that person to come to them. That's one possibility. The other challenge is on the other side. This person is afraid it's too risky. So, safety aside, their comfortability, they're making a mistake or looking bad to other people or making someone else feel bad prevents them. They just would prefer not to rock the boat.

Sara Best: 13:07

And it's not to say that if people would just speak up and speak their mind and be more assertive, that all our people problems and our relationship problems at work would go away. No, they wouldn't go away, but they'd be more clearly defined, I think, and there would be a greater opportunity to adjust and respond to information. So I often think about it as the word "ping John, you've heard me use that ping. Assertiveness is that ping right in the middle where you're just speaking with integrity. And assertiveness doesn't mean that you can't show emotion, but it means that we're managing emotion in the experience of sharing our thoughts and ideas, and that's not easy to do. That's having five controls in front of you and trying to manage all of them at the same time, maybe for me it's more like 10.

John Broer: 14:00

I'm sorry. I'm thinking of the imagery of trying to land a 747 and never having piloted a plane. You've got so many things going on and I don't think that's a stupid analogy, but it's just. There's so many complex things happening at the same time. Yes, Sara, it's interesting as we've been going through this series on the big five skills of emotional intelligence. You've used the word choice a number of times.

John Broer: 14:23

I think that's really critical. I don't wanna step over that. So many of these things are based on a choice that one makes. Correct, yes, yes.

Sara Best: 14:33

I think, John, any intentional adaptation is a choice. So when I recognize I need to slow down and temper my pace and the degree to which I'm listening to a conversation or eliminating distractions, that's a choice. It's kind of like if you're doing an exercise program and you have 10 reps to go and you could either sit them out, stop what you're doing and just take a break, or you could choose to keep going. I'm gonna finish these 10. It really is that kind of a choice. I think. Listen to this definition, John, "Assertiveness involves communicating thoughts and beliefs openly, as well as defending personal rights and values in a non-offensive and non-destructive manner. So let's take it up a notch. When we talk about assertiveness, there's this continuum, and on one end of the continuum it's like all out arguing and dismissing other people's perspectives and aggressively pushing your own.

John Broer: 15:37

Right, we've never seen that, have we? No, go ahead sorry. I went below the line there for a second go ahead.

Sara Best: 15:44

Yeah, I've seen it on TV and when that happens it's very unproductive. It can be very traumatic for people. I think one of the things that we should recognize impacts our ability to be assertive is our lived experiences. So, what happened to you when you asserted yourself before what if there was never a safe person or a safe place to share your thoughts and ideas? And you learn that if you spoke up, your idea got stolen, somebody else took the credit. You didn't count or they didn't really care.

John Broer: 16:18

Your chat or you're chastised for it, or something like that.

Sara Best: 16:21

Yeah, the other half of that definition talks about defending personal rights and beliefs, personal values, rights, and this is a zone gosh. I just wish we could all exercise and practice being in the zone, because it's where some, I think, some of the most creative and transformative ideas and healing can happen. And, of course, to be able to do that you have to have another competency, which we call empathy.

Sara Best: 16:53

You have to be willing to not only just say your part and what you believe and what your rights are, but listen to the other person. I think assertiveness it's not ugly, it's clean and clear and it takes practice a lot of practice.

John Broer: 17:12

Of the big five emotional self-awareness, empathy, self-regard, assertiveness and next week we're going to be talking about impulse control. This one impulse control, I think, also is related to what I'm going to say. In our world of people, science and behavioral analytics, we can more specifically measure a person's proactive nature versus being responsive. You talked about dominance versus patience high dominance, low patience. Highly proactive, high patience, low dominance, more responsive by nature. This is where I think managers and supervisors can benefit the most from people data, because if I'm a Captain, I'm using our nomenclature.

John Broer: 18:03

I'm a Captain, I'm highly proactive.

John Broer: 18:05

If I'm not careful and monitor my assertiveness, dial care, you know being mindful of it if I'm not aware of that dial and I'm not self-aware and I'm adapting based on the circumstance I could blow right over somebody, blow right through a circumstance and ruin it and, at the same time, because I have the data of my team, I can see those people who are lower in dominance and higher in patience and who tend to be more responsive by nature, a bit more reflective, introspective.

John Broer: 18:40

I can be very intentional about realizing that in a meeting, I'm not going to force somebody to talk. I want to create an atmosphere where people can feel safe to talk and at the same time, though, I realize that that individual or certain individuals would prefer to sit down and talk one-on-one. But I want to create, I want to use this objective data to be a better coach and developer of people, but also understand. It also helped me to meet them where they are based on their wiring, and this is where I'm encouraging managers and supervisors. You know the analytics we use. We're happy to get you set up with Predictive Index, but I'll tell you what. There are other validated tools out there that will help you understand those people that may be naturally high in assertiveness and may need to dial it back, but those that may lower in it and may need a different forum or channel of communication so they can be heard, and that's how you elevate your capabilities as a manager.

Sara Best: 19:40

And I'm struck, John, with how simple the idea of assertiveness is, as it's the way we adjust our dominance. Yeah. You know people that are lower in dominance sometimes need to drive forward and be more decisive or more expressive or more, you know, communicative, because if they don't, they run the risk of being misunderstood or dismissed or being deemed a person who doesn't care if it's a person who's very high in dominance and naturally confident in their own ideas.

Sara Best: 20:15

and you and I have seen this lots of times and you even said it yourself, you know these are the people that won't even let the idea come forward because they already said theirs. And everybody knows. Oh yeah, that's the way we're going to go. Right. That's, you know, this person drives that conversation, John, for our listeners, if you want to kind of check in on your own level of assertiveness, I'm going to ask a couple questions you can kind of reflect on.

John Broer: 20:37

Oh, I like this part. I like this part, here we go.

Sara Best: 20:39

Yeah well, first of all, think about a time when you were assertive. Maybe you stood up for yourself, maybe you shared an opinion that was differing from someone else's. Maybe you, if somebody asked you a question, and you actually truthfully answered the question, you know, what helped you do that? On the other end of that, what about a time when you wanted to or wished you would have stood up for yourself and advocated for yourself or clarified something about yourself, and you didn't? In that moment, the question is what stopped me? What?

Sara Best: 21:16

was the thought I had that prevented me or made it seem too risky to do that? How about, you know? Think of a time when you disagreed with somebody. And you know, disagreement first happens in our head. You know we say things to ourselves like that's stupid. Well, hell, no, I don't agree with that. But then sometimes we don't say it externally. We may exhibit, you know, a disagreement on our face or with our body language, but you know, if you did say something, what was the outcome? Yeah.

Sara Best: 21:46

Did it move the conversation forward? Did it provide clarity, even if it was uncomfortable? Or if you didn't say something when you disagreed, then was the outcome that you had to go along with something that you didn't quite buy in about.

Sara Best: 22:03

I think that's a really good one. Here's a good one, kind of like when I talked about my kids when we go out to dinner and I'm sorry if they're listening because this is my experience. You may argue with me, but you know, I want to be the person who says this isn't right, we need to make this right, and they're so horrified by that. No, we were fine, I'm fine, I'll just eat it the way it is. This is kind of like that. How would you react if someone on your team wasn't pulling their weight? And they consistently weren't pulling their weight? You know, do you go assert the idea to a bunch of people who don't have anything to do with it? And that, by the way, is what we would call gossip.

Sara Best: 22:43

When you go somewhere else and talk about the issuer challenge other than to the person with whom you're having the challenge. So when that's happening and you're getting more and more frustrated and potentially resentful, you know, what does it take to be able to say to that person I'm concerned or I'm confused. It seems like I'm doing two thirds of the work and you're only doing this much of the work. And the only I guess the only other thought I had in preparation for our conversation today about assertiveness, John, is you know, just takes practice.

Sara Best: 23:14

Yeah, this is not something I believe any one person is uniquely skilled to be able to do. You know we can be modeled. You know we can have. I'm sorry, we can have healthy assertiveness modeled by people in our life and I've certainly had the benefit of that. But as a high dominance, high extroversion person and a low patience person, I sometimes in the last one to speak up and then then I snipe later on because I didn't say what I needed to say. So much in here. And it's really an individual journey, it's an individual reflection and it is a dial that each of us has to become very well acquainted with and understand when to dial it up or down, given. What is the desired reaction, what is the desired result we want with people?

John Broer: 24:02

Can I circle back really quick? I know we're wrapping up, but this is I think this is really critical. I think you've hit on another gem here, and that is practice. Not only, not only does it take like repetition and getting good at it, but literally you know it's easy to be assertive if you're sharing good news or you're congratulating somebody and you you know it's on the affirming side. But let's say you have to deliver or share harsh or difficult news.

Sara Best: 24:27

Yes.

John Broer: 24:27

Well for me what I need to do. I can see this solution working in both cases. Yeah.

John Broer: 24:33

Being naturally high in assertiveness, I need to. I literally you've done that. You've helped me with this. Sara, you've been a sounding board for me, both you and Karen, where I may say listen, I've got to talk to so and so about this. This is how I'm going to approach it, and, or this is what I'm thinking of, how I'd like to present this to this individual, and both of you have been great in giving me well, John, have you thought about it this way? Have you thought about it sharing it in this way or approaching it in a different way? It's like wow, that's super helpful to me.

John Broer: 25:04

That's practice. To me, that's, I don't want to say rehearsing, but it's almost like curating the right message based on the individual. So it's not to do damage, because if I'm not careful and I just go with my assertiveness, I may not be that considerate. So to me, that's kind of like practicing what you're going to say, even writing it down and being very thoughtful that way. On the other hand, for somebody with the lowest assertiveness, same kind of practice can apply. Just bouncing it off a friend, bouncing it off a colleague I have something very difficult to share with. So and so, "Can I confide in you to help me think about this. To me, I think that's warranted, especially when we have to deliver challenging or difficult news.

Sara Best: 25:47

Yeah, John, there's a little spin on that I'm thinking about the person who's lower in assertiveness. This is especially challenging, I think, when a person feels a bit like a doormat, or when they feel undervalued or underappreciated, they probably don't recognize their pattern of complaining about it. And this has happened to me before. You know where I went down a path and I kept kind of saying the same story and communicating the same frustrations over and over.

Sara Best: 26:20

And somebody really cool, like my mom, would say why didn't you say something or why don't you let them know? Yeah, there's that notion of we can help each other, sometimes by calling out a pattern of complaint and challenge. You know this is a- you're telling me over and over again, this is a problem for you, yet you've never even told this person.

John Broer: 26:41

Right.

Sara Best: 26:41

This is a problem for you and you know for each person. Then you kind of have to go into the experience of assessing the risk, like for a lot of people it seems very unsafe and very scary. They would rather just suffer through it.

John Broer: 26:56

Yeah.

Sara Best: 26:56

But then they don't recognize how much they're making everyone else suffer too, because they keep telling the story over and over again. So this becomes a very critical skill. It is about integrity. No, it is about speaking your truth. I don't step easily over the idea that many people have spoken their truth and they've been punished or worse for it, oh sure. So recognizing that sometimes the threat is real, oh for sure. But in our day to day it's just, it's just getting better at hitting right down the middle, saying what you mean, meaning what you say, and not saying it mean. And, quite honestly, that's a gift to give someone some feedback or share your thoughts. Let them know where you stand, let them know where they stand with you. And who wouldn't want to know that?

John Broer: 27:47

For sure. Another good one, Sara. Wow, this has been a great series. By the way, go into the show notes because the first three are listed there. You can go back and listen to them all. We've had people doing that. I can see, just in terms of the downloads, that people are going back and taking these in order. That's awesome. So next week impulse control right yeah.

Sara Best: 28:09

Yeah, this is tough for our regular listeners that are so gracious to tune in each week. I would say, as pre-work for the impulse control podcast episode, you should go Google the marshmallow test.

John Broer: 28:24

Oh, yeah, okay.

Sara Best: 28:26

So Google "marshmallow test and go to videos You're going to see. I don't even know how many thousands of hits, but there are some really dynamic and interesting, cute little videos that you can watch. That gives you a sense right out of the chute of why impulse control becomes really, really important. So we will unpack that next week.

John Broer: 28:46

Sounds good. Thanks, Sara.

Sara Best: 28:48

Yep, see you next time.

John Broer: 28:53

We'd like to thank our guests today on the Bossh ole Chronicles and if you have a Bossh ole Chronicles story of your own, please email us at mystory@thebossholechronicles. com. Once again, mystory@thebossholechronicles. com, We'll see you again soon.