Assertiveness is:
The ability to honestly express ones opinions, feelings, attitude and assert ones rights without undue anxiety and in a way that doesnt infringe on the feelings and rights of others.
(Elizabeth-Scott, 2007)
A great Leader is an assertive person who is expressive and self-enhancing.
Practicing good assertive skills means seeing the best in people, to respect their opinions or views and try to compromise on conflicting issues. When a person uses direct, open and honest communication in relationship in order to meet his personal needs or the needs of an organisation or business, he/she feels more confident and gains respect from others.
Assertiveness is a basic communication skill in the same way that negotiating, delegating and other identifiable business skills are basically communication skills.
So Leaders who have mastered the skill of assertiveness are able to greatly reduce the level of interpersonal conflict in their lives.
The key difference between assertive Leaders and aggressive Leaders is that an individual with an assertive attitude recognises the rights of others to be individual and to have a right to express personal preferences, feelings and opinions. Assuming the best about others the assertive Leaders respects themselves while trying to compromise when others have different interests. As a result their behaviour promotes communication and problem solving. An assertive leader will face problems promptly and focus on solutions rather than problems.
On the other hand, aggressive Leaders will often employ tactics that are disrespectful, manipulative, demeaning or abusive. Aggressive Leaders, unlike the assertive Leaders, make negative assumptions about the motives of others and subsequently think in retaliatory terms.
Aggressive Leaders disregard another persons point of view and will fight to win at the expense of others, thus creating unnecessary conflict. He/she will be by insistent that his feelings and needs take precedence over that of other people. This can make handling conflict properly and resourcefully almost impossible.
Assertiveness skills provide a Leader with the means to communicate with employees to achieve organizational goals.
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