Intro to Assertive Communication

We all communicate with many different people in many different situations throughout the day at work. We run into difficult conversations and challenges in expressing ourselves clearly and being heard. We also need to balance the needs of others with different priorities as well as our own needs.

In most situations, assertive communication strikes the right balance between being clear about your own needs and caring about the needs of others. Unfortunately, assertive communication is not as easy as it sounds. Many of us tend to communicate in one of three other ways: Passive, Manipulative, or Aggressive.

You can imagine these 4 types of communication on two axes, one that represents our level of clarity of communicating our needs and one that represents our level of caring for others’ needs.

Here are some examples of what you may say or do when you’re communicating in one of these ways. as you review them, think of times when you may have demonstrated each type of behaviour. You’ll be asked about examples later.

We certainly don’t always get what we want, but when we’re assertive, we respect other and we have a better chance of being heard and feeling respected.