GETTING IT RIGHT!! For the most part, people mistake being assertive as being aggressive, automatically making assertiveness something with a negative connotation. This is because many people do not understand the difference between being assertive and being aggressive. Consider these definitions. Assertive: a confident personality that maintains consideration of others Aggressive: pursuing one’s own aims/interests forcefully, selfishly, sometimes excessively The key word here is ‘confident’. Note that aggressive is not specifically defined as being confident. This is not to say that you cannot be confident and aggressive, however you cannot be assertive unless you are confident. Aggression is often a response to uncertainty and if you are not certain of something you cannot be confident. Think of the defensive response of wild animals. They respond aggressively because they are not confident of what you are going to do: are you going to hurt them? are you going to hurt their young? In this, aggression is self-serving. The primary reason you act aggressively is to pursue your own outcomes, even a foundational outcome as self survival. Assertiveness on the other hand says that you are confident and that you are sure of the facts before you. That confidence means that you are considering others in relation to action. In the example of a wild animal, it is not uncommon for a wild animal to not be as aggressive toward humans if they have had positive, non-threatening experiences with humans. In this capacity, the animal’s experience leads to confidence that the human is not going to hurt them. Arriving at that confidence means considering the other person, measuring against experiences, to some degree understanding the other person, and taking all of that into consideration. Understanding assertive vs. aggressive behavior allows you to be conscience of how you are acting. Obviously, acting with confidence is always preferable to acting without confidence. This does not mean you always have the answer. Sometimes you won’t be confident in the expected outcome or exactly what steps to take, but you can be confident that you have taken necessary variables into consideration, considered against experience, asked others for input, etc. In that capacity, you are acting assertively with the confidence that you have done what you could to ensure desired outcomes. To use a legal term, you have done due diligence. This is not just semantics (the study of meaning of a word, including historically). Whatever word you use, the goal is the point: act confidently in consideration of others. This is not always easy, however. As a guild leader/officer, a member may come at you with a problem that they are quite upset about. They may cross the line from being respectful/professional and are swearing and blaming you, personally holding you responsible. There are many every day examples where this could happen: someone feels they aren’t included in raids, loot drama, someone feels there is favoritism, etc. There are 3 responses to such a situation.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 14:53:18 +0000
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