Are you an Assertive Leader?

Effective leaders set a team’s tone, direction, and sense of urgency.

While great leaders possess all kinds of skills and capabilities, one needs to be discussed more: assertiveness.

Most Organizations are grappling with the challenge of their leaders lacking assertiveness in their behaviour. This is an issue because assertive leaders bring a sense of certainty in their behaviour eliciting trust in their team members and confidence in their senior management.

To better understand assertiveness, it’s often easier to recognize what it isn’t.

Leaders lacking assertiveness tend to be either passive, aggressive, or passive-aggressive.

Passive – Passive leaders avoid conflict and aren’t sure of themselves. They beat around the bush when it comes to critical topics and struggle to get to the heart of what they want or need to say. This could be attributed to a sense of fear, lack of confidence, being over-empathetic and having a feeling of insecurity.

Aggressive – Aggressive leaders overshadow others by dominating every conversation. They tend to be combative, argumentative, and use intimidation to get their way. When someone is aggressive in their communication, they confuse it with being assertive.

Passive Aggressive –These leaders tend to be assertive on the surface, but they have an ulterior motive. They use sarcasm or deflections to convey their true feelings without directly confronting the issues. It can be challenging to spot passive-aggressive communication initially, but eventually, the truth emerges.

Do you demonstrate one of these behaviours?

The best leaders aren’t aggressive, they are assertive.


What is Assertiveness?
Assertiveness is the ability to express yourself honestly and respectfully. It involves clearly, concisely, and conclusively stating your needs, feelings, or perspective while respecting others. Most importantly, it’s a skill that can be learned and developed.

Assertive communicators blend three essential elements.


Confidence: The myth around assertive leaders is that they were born with this trait. The reality is assertive communication is born out of belief. Confidence comes from within, and it’s built through consistent daily repetition. A famous thought leader has said, “Repetition is the mother of learning. Repetition is the mother of skill.”

Competence: Being competent means you have the ability and reputation to do something well. It means you possess wisdom about the topic or strategy you are speaking about. Whether that competence was developed through studying, experience, or some combination of the two, knowing what you are talking about is a required element of assertive behaviour.

Conviction: Leaders with a strong sense of conviction or purpose are more likely to communicate with passion. Their decisions are made with the single-minded focus on the end goal. 

The best leaders know the mission they are on and aren’t willing to stop until it’s achieved.


What Assertiveness Sounds Like?

Let’s assume for a moment that you have confidence, competence, and conviction. What does assertiveness sound like? In the simplest terms, it might sound something like this if you are inspiring your team to give their best effort for a new initiative/task:

Be aware of your thoughts... "The situation and individual are different" 

Say How You Feel…” I feel excited about the opportunity in front of us.”

Describe What You Have Learned, Experienced, or Visualized… “I understand that the market conditions are in our favour and I trust your ability to make this happen…”

Say What You Need, “I need everyone’s commitment for the next 3 months to make this happen, come what may.”


It would be impossible to know if you are confident, competent, or convicted enough to communicate assertively. However, assertiveness is a skill that can be learned and developed. 

If you currently demonstrate one of the non-assertive behaviours described earlier, I invite you to get into the following habits:

- Separate the individual from the situation to avoid emotions coming in the way
- State your expectations/needs clearly
- Say how you feel in every situation
- Describe what you have learned or observed as they are

You will be on your way to becoming an Assertive Leader setting your team’s tone, direction, and sense of urgency.

- Coach Ram

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