And when you haven't mastered this,
you might end up being called aggressive instead of assertive.
Hello and welcome back to my channel where I help you slay your career and
cultivate the successful life you deserve.
Do you ever feel like a doormat at work?
Like people are just walking all over you passing on tasks that you're afraid to
say no to holding
back your opinion when you disagree with the direction that things are going in.
This is something that's so many of my clients struggle with,
and this is actually one of the top requested videos that I get on LinkedIn.
So in today's video, we're going to talk
about how you can be assertive at work without being called, you know,
the B word. If that sounds good to you and you think more people need to see it,
make sure in tap that like button,
it really helps my channel with the whole YouTube algorithm thing.
And let's jump into it.
The first thing that you need to do in order to be more assertive at work.
Is actually back the horse up a little bit, and to know your awesome nose.
I don't care who you are, what you do are where you are in your career.
You bring a unique perspective to the table that literally only you can bring.
And if you are not offering up that perspective, then you are doing
a disservice to your company. Yeah, I know.
He's probably never thought about it like this before,
but your company on your boss has you there for a specific reason.
And it isn't just to be a robot who follows orders. Well, maybe it is,
and you're on the totally wrong place, but that's a whole other video.
The fastest way to do this is to understand what your unique awesomeness
quotient is. Your UAQ.
And knowing your UAQ is not just important to be more assertive at work,
but it's crucial across all junctures of career success.
If you don't know your UAQ and you want to dig in and figure out what it is,
I highly recommend that you sign up for my workshop, which I'll link down below.
Knowing the unique value that you bring to the table is going to
help you be more assertive at work without really a lot of effort. However,
for most people it does take a little bit more than that,
but you don't want to go straight into like bulldozing
conversations because that's probably not you.
And that is probably why you're struggling with assertiveness at work.
So instead of being that crusher, that takes things over and says
no to everyone,
why don't you implement the next step to be more assertive at work?
And that is to offer to help instead, this is something that,
especially a lot of the women that I work with,
we sit around and we wait to be picked.
Maybe you're a good girl and you put your hand up,
but I'm going to suggest one slight tweak in the way that you offer to help.
Instead of asking it as a question, I was there at your willingness to help.
So instead of saying, Oh, can I please help with this area of the project?
I think maybe I would be pretty good at it... Instead of that,
do this. That sounds like a fantastic initiative.
I'll take lead on this aspect of the project.
One thing you might not be aware of is exactly how much people in management
actually struggle with delegation.
So you just offering to take it on and stating it as something that
you were doing is going to really help take pressure off of their plate and,
you know, eliminate the whole decision making thing. Of course,
if they have an objection, you can talk it out,
but why don't you just cut a whole bunch of the fluff,
stop asking permission and just offer
to help and give the value that only you can get.
But before you go offering your help everywhere,
you need to make sure that it does map back to your interests. And again,
going back to that, UAQ,
that is so important to make sure that you're offering to help on the right
things. If you're an overachiever like me,
you were willing to do all of those things and try to get
acknowledgement that way,
but it doesn't work sticking with your UAQ on your interest is
going to pay off much more in terms of accelerating your career and drawing from
that. The next thing that you can do to be more assertive at work is to,
I don't what to say no to with this,
you first need to focus on knowing what you need to say. No two on,
I do have a video that will help you figure out what should be in your no pile.
I'll link it down below so you can check it out.
But you also have to be confident when you're saying no.
And again,
know that the things that you're saying no to really means that you are saying
yes to something else. There is easy and simple ways to say no, in fact,
I can do a whole video.
And if you were interested in digging in on the art of saying no at work,
let me know in the comments, but I don't want to leave you on alert.
If you are having to say no to a task or a request at work from a coworker,
you can simply say, I'm not able to take that on in this time.
Or if the request is coming in from your boss, what you can do is to ask them,
to assist you with prioritizing all of the things that you have going on,
you know, in a really nice way, of course,
this will put the ball into your boss's court so that they tell you what to do
so that you don't end up dropping the wrong ball.
And one thing that you might have noticed here,
and this is something that is particularly crucial when you are being assertive
at work. In fact,
I think not doing this one thing is a reason why assertiveness is sometimes
confused for bitchiness at work, to be more assertive at work.
You need to communicate clearly.
And this actually has a couple of different facets in terms of assertiveness.
One of the things that I find a lot of my clients,
especially women tend to do is you might
tend to use soft language.
You might dance around the word know or do something like ask for permission.
When you are trying to assert yourself as we kind of chatted about before,
to be more assertive at work,
make sure that you are choosing concise and clear language
in order to get your point across giving a simple explanation,
especially when you were saying no,
or pushing back on an idea or an initiative is going to be something that helps
to keep the conversation moving along and stops you from appearing difficult.
I'm not able to take on that report today because I'm completing a pitch deck
for tomorrow morning.
Is there any chance that you can see have chatted has any availability or if I
can complete it after the pitch meeting tomorrow, see how I did that there,
I gave an indisputable factual reason,
but then I also gave them some options of different things that they could
proceed with. So I'm being assertive.
I'm holding my boundary about what I'm able to achieve in a day at work,
but I'm also making sure that my colleague or my boss,
isn't going to be left and alert for that crucial report on the other hand.
And this is where we enter a great big sea of gray area.
Sometimes no is a complete sentence.
Sometimes you don't need to give the reason. For example,
if you're being asked to work after hours and you have a personal conflict,
you don't have to give that reason why.
And sometimes giving the reason actually opens
the debate when the debate shouldn't be opened up at all.
And that's definitely way more than I can get into in this video.
But I can tell you the more that you practice saying no,
the more you're going to learn when you need to give the reason.
And one is none of their business,
which leads me to my next tip to be more assertive at work. I find often,
especially when someone is saying no, or they're pushing back on an idea,
they tend to be apologetic.
And the thing that you need to do to be more assertive at work is to stop
apologizing. Now, this is a very, very hard one.
For me personally, I'm Canadian.
We apologize for everything. In fact,
there is a law that says apologizing doesn't even mean that you're taking
accountability. Cause we just walk around and saying, sorry,
but if you're not Canadian in Canada, t.
his is something that you really do need to pay attention to. For example,
when you're disagreeing with a colleague, have you ever said apologies,
but I don't really agree with you. How's that for some assertive language,
instead of that, say this, I disagree because see worlds of difference.
You do not owe anyone apology for not being able to take
on their work disagreeing with an idea or for pushing for something that is
really going to help your team and your company.
That's sad when you are being assertive at work,
you are going to encounter conflict,
which brings me to my next tip to be more assertive at work.
And that is to be ready to navigate conflict at work and to diffuse that.
Now I do have an entire video,
which I'll link down below if you do want to deep dive,
but when you do have conflict as a result of being assertive at work,
the first thing I'm the most important thing that I need you to
know is that's totally okay,
disagreeing or pushing back. It's uncomfortable for people,
but conflict is necessary in order for us to get to the best possible outcomes.
Think about it.
If you have a difference of opinion and you don't fully explore the different
opinions and Hey,
even the different options that you can draw from those different opinions,
your company might end up with a whole home solution or a ho hum direction,
instead of something
exceptional that can actually be created as a direct result of conflict.
One thing without you having to jump and watch any other video,
I want you to be really clear on though when it
comes to navigating conflict at work,
especially when you're just starting to become more
assertive at work is to make sure that your conflict is based on facts
and not on the person or their personality. Differentiating.
Those two things is really key because as soon as something becomes personal,
it becomes off the rail. That's exactly what you want to avoid at work.
And when you haven't mastered this,
you might end up being called aggressive instead of assertive.
And this is something that it's so very gendered. So this is another thing,
especially if you're a woman watching this,
I want you to be aware of is that aggressiveness and assertiveness
can sometimes be used interchangeably,
even though they are two totally different things. Being assertive,
especially being assertive as a woman at work,
doesn't make everyone comfortable. If someone calls you aggressive,
that's okay for me, the key difference is being assertive
means that you are still trying to create a win,
win situation for everyone participating in whatever conversation you're having.
While someone who is aggressive is trying to win and
they don't care if you lose in the process,
sometimes the difference can also be nailed down to the delivery as well.
When you are being assertive at work, it is very important that you
exercise that key skill that I talk about all the time here on my channel.
And that is empathy.
Understanding where someone is coming from and being considerate of their goals.
And their perspective is so important.
And especially when you're standing up for yourself,
pushing back or even saying no knowing where that person is coming from and
making sure
that everyone's best outcomes are being considered is going to help you
stay on the assertive line versus the aggressive line at the end of the day,
when you're assertive at work.
But you're keeping in mind what is best for everyone in the situation.
If someone says that you're being aggressive,
that is much more on them and they might be projecting on you
just a little bit. And sadly,
especially when we consider things like gender bias in the workplace,
it sometimes is just a byproduct that you kind of need to be ready for
and be okay with when it does happen.
And that leads me into my most important tip to be more assertive
at work and that confident AI,
you can not be self conscious and be assertive at the same time.
Like try it. It is absolutely not possible.
Remember that you deserve the seat at the table and
that your perspective and your opinion matters your butt is in that seat for a
reason. And do not forget that fact in my next video,
I'm going to be deep diving into how to be more
confident at work or at least how to appear more confident at work.
If this is the exact video that you know, you need it in your life,
make sure and click that subscription button on the notification bell. So,
you know, as soon as it goes live, in the meantime though, I do want
you to prepare in case there is any conflict when you are assertive at work,
go and check out this video right now, and it's going to break it down for you.
If you feel like this video helped you prepare to be more assertive at work,
make sure and give it a thumbs up, share it with a
friend who can use it in their life.
And I will see you in the next video as well. Thank you so much for watching.
I'll see you next time. Bye for now.