Assertive communication is an important but difficult skill for many new leaders, especially if you come from a more passive communication style. In assertive communication, you don’t only have to master the skill of verbal communication but also need to develop a mindset that helps you become an assertive communicator.
Most people have a love and hate relationship with assertive communication. But we all admire people who can express their opinions and thoughts. When you try to be assertive, you feel guilty, bossy, and too direct.
But, once you start researching assertive communication and start learning how to be assertive in conversations, it all seems very easy. All those fears vanish and they just appear to be simple obstacles that can be worked through.
When you start learning to become an assertive speaker, your fear will come on and off in your journey. But always remember that they are just mere obstacles that you can overcome with time.
Learning to become an assertive communicator is a journey. It is a full-fledged commitment to yourself; it is a task in which you need to change your past behaviors. There would be days; you might be successful at asserting yourself in difficult situations. While on other days, you might fail miserably. But that’s okay.
The only golden key is your commitment and dedication to yourself that you will continue to improve step by step, and you will learn the art of assertive communication.
And If you stick with your commitment to learning, we can guarantee that you will become better at communicating assertively.
To inspire you to keep on learning how to communicate assertively. In this article, we will take a look at five reasons why assertive communication is important for new leaders.
Leaders Who Don’t Communicate Assertively Don’t Last
If you are a new leader, you won’t succeed if you can’t be assertive. Being a leader requires being assertive; otherwise, you won’t last in this field. You can get a post of leadership, and you can hold on to the post for a while. But after a while, if you don’t have those assertive qualities, others will discover that you are not capable of handling the difficult situation, can’t make difficult decisions and eventually, you will be taken down from your position. So, avoiding situations in which you need to be assertive is not a solution. If you want to become a successful leader, you will need to confront people with confidence like leaders do.
Being Assertive Makes You Sound Confident
The biggest struggle new leaders face is with communicating their opinions, ideas, and thoughts in a confident way. You always fear saying something wrong in front of your seniors and experienced colleagues. This fear and anxiety cause your thoughts to get muddled, and when you speak, your message lacks confidence.
But when you are a confident, assertive speaker, your speech will have confidence, and your words and sentence structures will immediately shine with your confidence.
Assertive Leaders Appear More Transparent And Honest
If you know how to communicate assertively, it means that you know how to honestly and openly share your thoughts, views, and opinions with others. Learning how to communicate assertively will make you able to communicate with honesty and transparency. Because once you learn how to speak assertively, then you don’t hold back or hide your thoughts and opinions from others. Because now you don’t fear saying the wrong thing and being challenged by them. And all this openness in your communication makes you come across as a more honest and transparent communicator.
You Learn How To Set Boundaries
You learn skills in assertive communication, which give you the power and confidence to set boundaries with people who ask too much of you. And you also learn how to say ‘no’ to people and too unreasonable requests. Because as a leader, it’s not your job to please everyone, rather your job is to make people complete and meet deadlines. A passive communicator can’t do this, and as a result, they waste a lot of time trying to say no in other ineffective ways. Whereas assertive communicators are able to say ‘no’ in an instant if something isn’t in line with their priorities.
You Can Make Clear Requests To Delegate
As a new leader, you can feel uncomfortable delegating. Because you are so used to being the one delegated to that you simply don’t know how to delegate others. So, when you delegate for the first time, the requests usually come across as passive, vague, and indirect. As they don’t sound assertive and clear, the listener often walks away confused and does not understand what to do. But when you learn how to communicate assertively, you learn how to clearly communicate the listener’s requests and leave no room for confusion.