How to be assertive! But not TOO assertive

Your superior at work tells a racially insensitive joke and you want to speak up but fear repercussions.

You have a political belief that departs from your family's traditions and you sit at the table biting your tongue.

You negotiate your vacation time with your new employer.

You feel depressed and you wish so badly to tell someone you love but the possibility that they will not be emotionally available or supportive scares you into secrecy.


As human beings we are constantly put into positions where our boundaries and values get tested. We wish so badly to have the courage and self-worth to stand up for ourselves but sadly, many of us put other's needs above our own, causing resentment and an overwhelming sense of defeat. We punish ourselves for lacking a spine and vow to be more assertive the next time. We are trapped in what sociologists call a double bind. You are damned if you do. Doomed if you don't. If you speak up you risk being rejected but if you don't speak up you will be overlooked and unnoticed.

So I'm sitting with a client, whether 7 or 70 and I can see that this is a recurring pattern in their lives. One of the biggest sources of stress comes from the resentment that they can't muster the courage to stand up for themselves and they justify it by giving examples of when they were burnt for trying. What do I do? Assertiveness training of course. Teach them how to use "I" statements so that they can communicate their needs effectively. But there is something missing that Adam Galinsky so clearly illustrates in his Ted Talk entitled "How to speak up for yourself".

The problem with just teaching assertiveness training is that we are missing one very important social variable: POWER. Adam Galinsky points out that we all have our range of acceptable behaviour. It's what we can get away with. But that range varies in relation to our level of power and this is where we need to include the many varieties of prejudice into the equation.

He uses gender as an example. Studies suggest that men have a larger range of acceptable behaviour when it comes to standing up for themselves than women do. A woman can voice a concern and she is labelled a fanatic or exaggerator more quickly than a man in most scenarios. This is not explicitly a gender issue. It is an issue of power. One person has more power than the other and they therefore have more leeway to speak their mind but there do exist scenarios in which women would have a larger range than men. It is no secret though, that the issue is that in most scenarios men have more social power than women and it is there where the inequality lies. The point Galinsky makes is that in order to be able to speak to yourself you have to gain power in order to expand your range of acceptable behaviour.

If you're at the bottom of the totem pole at work then you will not have much leverage and you are not in a good position to be expressing your ideas about which hors d'oeuvres should be served at the staff Christmas Party let alone how the company should be structured. That isn't to say that your voice shouldn't be heard at all and others shouldn't be more respectful of your opinion but we are talking about reality here.

There is a way to gain more social power and Galinsky spells it out clearly in his talk. No matter how much or how little privilege you enjoy you can expand your range of acceptable behaviour and ultimately your influence. And let me be clear that this has to do with perceptions entirely. Your perception of yourself and how you are perceived by others. When these perceptions change the risk of advocating for yourself decreases. You can be assertive and still likable.

Here are a few tips on how to expand your range condensed from his talk if you're not going to watch it:
Advocate for others. You gain confidence while gaining trust from others when you stand up for someone else's interests.
Take other's perspectives. Covey said it. Seek first to understand then to be understood. People are more likely to listen to your ambitious ideas when you have validated theirs first.
Signal to others that you are flexible. Offer alternatives or recognize ambiguities. If you are rigid then people are more likely to be turned off by you and consequently your idea.
Gain allies.  Doing the previous three will help you in this endeavour. People have a varying threshold of when they will entertain novel concepts. Hearing it from one person might not be enough. The more on your side the more credibility you have and others will follow suit.
Ask others for advice. This expresses humility while flattering others. Those with experience and expertise are usually very quick and willing to share.
Display expertise. People with high power don't need to show much expertise. Low power people need to show that they know what they are talking about. Understand the arguments for and against your idea. Know the numbers. Know your bias as well as the bias of your adversary. When you are equipped with knowledge you can quickly turn the tides and become the authority on the subject.
Show your passion. Take the opportunity to insert yourself into conversations when your passion is presented. Let your body language communicate how excited you are to even be in the conversation.


Now you may say, what if the cause that I want to promote is just not popular and I have no chance of being assertive AND being liked at the same time. My answer is you should try and find a way. This isn't about being more popular it's about actually having influence on other human beings. If your idea or product or cause is important enough to you then you need to find a way to expand your range and get the message out in a way that doesn't threaten everyone who hears it.

We all know someone who is an emboldened advocate for a cause but who promotes the cause in such an adversarial fashion that people are distracted by the messenger to the point that they don't catch the vision of the message. You come off as trying to sound smart or important rather than actually getting your message across.

Influencing people is extremely hard for those of us with little social power. If we want more success in selling our ideas or sticking up for our beliefs or asserting our boundaries we need to gain more social capital by following the advice of Adam Galinsky.