Maybe, like me, you thought behaviour was a soft skill. It took me more than a few years in the workplace to realise behaviour was far from soft. There’s an old adage that we hire people for their skills and fire them for their behavioural faults. Our behaviour choices have the potential to advance our careers and improve our wellbeing, or they can limit us at every turn, sabotage our best intentions, and make life harder than it needs to be.
Back to Greyton
Come back with me to my middle career. You find me in the charming village of Greyton in the Western Cape, with its oak-lined streets, open water furrows and gingerbread cottages; a place where dogs and horses have right of way. Along with a group of executives from other organisations, I will spend four days with Lidia Vosloo, a clinical psychologist and the doyenne of assertiveness in South Africa. Was this just another management workshop? I had done so many before.
Instead, it was a transformational week that would change the trajectory of my career. Lidia would become a generous mentor to me, and her work would become a significant part of my own consulting in the years to come. Work that has set people free to pursue life and careers that matter to them. Many people, years later, tell me it changed their lives, and I understand why. It changed the way I did life and work.
I started speaking out more confidently. I started to set boundaries and say no more often. I stepped out of my comfort zone more often. I built better relationships. I limited the time I spent with negative people who believed everything was against them and were determined to prove it rather than change it. As a strong introvert, I started making my thinking more visible. I started listening better.
I stopped rescuing people, feeling compelled to fix their problems. I learned to become kinder to myself, which meant I could also be kinder to other people. I still wanted to help other people, but I realised other people owned their own choices. The only person I could change was myself, and it remains work in progress to this day.
Over those four days I learned four things. I learned that trying to change my personality would be an expensive and futile exercise, but that I could choose my behaviour. I learned that I taught other people to behave towards me; what I tolerated I validated. I learned that I was always 100% responsible for my own behaviour, but only 50% responsible for any relationship in my life. Lastly, I learned I could become my own work ‘therapist’ by challenging my thinking, regulating my emotions, and taking charge of my own mental wellbeing.
Can we fix it?
It was liberating for me, as it may be to you, that we can change how we behave, if we want to. Perhaps the children’s character, Bob the Builder, was right when he said: ‘Can we fix it? Yes, we can!’ But if we want to make new choices, we have to give up the blame game.
We have to stop blaming our genetics, our nationality, our gender, our lack of credentials, our ‘ex’, or our parents for the choices we make now. J.K. Rowling famously said there was an expiry date for blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, the responsibility lies with you. In a world of types and styles, I think it’s time to take back what we have a choice about.
Choices in the workplace
Consider the choices in an average workday. We can initiate a task, or we can wait for someone else to make the first move. We can solve a problem, or we can blame other people (or the system). We can listen well, or we can fake attention. We can raise an opinion, or we can expect other people to read our minds. We can avoid conflict, or we can deal with it constructively.
We can raise an awkward issue with a colleague, or we can gossip about them to someone else. We can overcommit and make promises we cannot possibly keep, or we can set reasonable boundaries and find a workable solution. We can wait for someone to develop a career development plan for us, or we can take charge of our career journey along with any support we get along the way.
I learned to listen better, to make my thinking more visible, to say no to unreasonable requests, and to take charge of my career journey, perhaps some of these are timely for you too.
Two Dimensions
The good news is our behaviour choices are based on two dimensions which underpin our most enduring leadership models. The Managerial Grid developed by Blake and Mouton call them ‘Concern for people’ and ‘Concern for production’. The Situational Leadership Model developed by Blanchard and Hersey call them ‘Relationship Behaviour’ and ‘Task Behaviour’.
For our purposes we’ll call these People and Task behaviours. Sometimes we make good People choices, but at the expense of getting things done; other times we make great Task choices but undermine ourselves and other people in the process.
The key is to replace the word ‘or’ with ‘and’. People who work productively with other people will always be in demand in the modern workplace. But taking action and getting things done also makes the world go round. People who can take action without being pushed every inch of the way will always be sought after in the workplace too. Becoming a better leader in the workplace means developing both.
In their book Improving productivity through people skills, Lefton, Buzzotta & Sherberg helpfully combine these two dimensions to create four quadrants of choice. Before you fall into wanting to categorize yourself, this is behaviour you can change. This is not a new model to describe who you are. And each quadrant is not a single choice but offers us thousands of choices with a common theme.
Quadrant 1: The Aggressive Choice
This first quadrant is high on task, but low on people. When we operate here, we take action and get things done, but our behaviour towards other people is hostile and unkind. We tell people what to do without considering their thoughts and ideas. We talk down to people, tell them what is wrong with them, humiliate them in public, and treat them like resources rather than people. When things go wrong, we quickly look for someone to blame and punish. Behaviour in this quadrant isn’t always in your face rude; it can just as easily take the form of sarcasm, snide remarks, or patronising comments delivered in a condescending, parental tone.
The impact of this choice on our work life is twofold. It creates enemies and stops other people from thinking and from taking ownership for tasks. It’s my way or the highway, then we complain no one makes a move without us, no one challenges our thinking. Why would they? We teach other people it’s not safe to be around us and that challenging us may be a career limiting move. Then we wonder why we are surrounded by people who have very little to say.
Quadrant 2: The Misery Choice
The second quadrant is low on people and low on task. When we go here, not only do we put off taking action we also alienate other people in the process. This choice comes with varying degrees of misery and helplessness, with a ‘yes, but…’ for every solution, sulking, doing only what is safe, and playing hate tapes in our head about people we don’t like, which is most of them.
Now, before you berate yourself for going here, we all complain about things from time to time, or dig our heels in when things don’t go our way. But staying in this quadrant is an unproductive personal choice and a career killer of all time, that’s if you want to get anywhere. It also comes with a health risk by fuelling depression and victimhood, neither of which help us make better choices; it just makes us ill.
Quadrant 3: The Frustrating Choice
The third quadrant is high on people, but low on task. When we go here, we seek harmony at all costs, avoid conflict and seldom say no to anything. It looks like it can do no harm, but it’s a frustrating and unproductive place to live for too long. We don’t get stuff done, decisions go round in circles, and we meet other people’s needs at the expense of our own, and often take on things we are not able or willing to do. We feel responsible to make everybody happy, which is both impossible and unnecessary.
The biggest downside is we forget we have needs too. I spent a lot of time in this quadrant till I realised I was not getting things done that were important to me and noticed I had a growing list of people who were becoming dependent on me for their next move. I just didn’t know what I was doing wrong, or how to fix it. The problem was not being kind to other people but doing so at the expense of getting things done and meeting our own needs.
Quadrant 4: The Assertive Choice
The fourth quadrant combines good people skills with getting things done. It’s where, in Stephen Covey’s words, life becomes a product of our decisions and not our conditions. True assertiveness lives here, which is not pushy and demanding, but seeks the best possible outcomes for everyone. We relate to other people without judgment, we can ask for what we want and need, we can become more self-propelled and make things happen.
But most of all, we learn to be kind to ourselves, so we can increase our capacity to be kind to other people. This is what I have called assertive leadership. The good news is we can all be more assertive leaders in life and at work without changing who we are, and without giving up our style of doing things.
We can all be Assertive Leaders
We can all be more assertive leaders in the workplace, no matter where we fit in the hierarchy. Here are some things assertive leaders do better in the workplace:
- Assertive leaders seek opportunities to empower themselves and other people to achieve results; they are therefore ‘we’ rather than ‘me’ focused.
- Assertive leaders communicate clearly what they want, where they are going and why. They don’t expect other people to read their minds or guess their agenda.
- Assertive leaders do whatever they can to grow themselves and other people; they give both positive and constructive negative feedback to help others reach their best potential.
- Assertive leaders are authentic; they are the same person in different situations, no pre-warning is needed about how they may be ‘today’.
- Assertive leaders show respect for other people in every interaction, even where there is disagreement or bad news.
- Assertive leaders are willing to make unpopular decisions that may be necessary for the business. They seek input from other people, but don’t seek consensus on every issue before making a decision.
- Assertive leaders are willing to make mistakes, to admit them and to learn from them. They accept that others too, make mistakes in the process of learning.
- Assertive leaders are willing to stick their necks out to make progress. They don’t hide behind policy or old ways of doing things simply because they are there. They understand that systems are there to support the business, not the other way round.
- Assertive leaders are honest with themselves and open about their values. They are willing to say what needs to be said without belittling or shaming other people.
- Assertive leaders listen well. They give their full attention to what others are saying rather than listening selectively and waiting for their turn to respond, criticise or offer advice. This allows them to identify the real issues amidst a sea of information and activity.
- Assertive leaders do whatever they can to engage people. They ask more questions, invite contributions, and actively encourage others to present ideas and solve problems.
- Assertive leaders treat other people as individuals. They appreciate that people are different and have different work capacities.
- Assertive leaders don’t judge or discriminate against anyone based on their gender, culture, sexual orientation, or background.
- Assertive leaders do what they can to manage themselves. They challenge their thinking, and actively manage their emotions and their behaviour in the workplace and beyond.
- Assertive leaders are more interested in solving the problem than wallowing in the past or blaming other people.
- Assertive leaders are willing to ask for help when they need it. They openly acknowledge those who bring solutions, and realise it is not necessary or practical to know everything or to be competent in all things.
- Assertive leaders take ownership for their decisions without blaming the system, other people, the environment, or market conditions for their lack of success.
- Assertive leaders are willing to make tough decisions and pay the price for those decisions without complaining endlessly about how costly they were.
- Assertive leaders grow people to succeed them. They are under no illusion that they are immortal and indispensable, and that the world will indeed go on without them.
- Assertive leaders are kind to themselves. They treat themselves as important as other people and actively manage their energy and their well-being.
- Assertive leaders realise that perfection is not possible, but that excellence is both a choice and a habit. They therefore nurture excellence in myself and those they seek to lead.
Changing Behaviour in Organisations
Culture, in its simplest form, is how people behave in organisations. If meetings are an opportunity for everyone to report the problem and wait for the head honcho to do all the thinking, that’s part of the culture. If meetings go around in circles for hours, that’s part of the culture. If no one thinks and nothing happens without the boss, that’s the culture.
We know that organisations don’t change behaviour; people do. In that sense, successful culture change is not too different from personal change since it means helping people make better behaviour choices based on agreed-upon values, one day at a time.
When organisations seek to develop a more collaborative and results-focused culture, they often have a shopping list like this.
- We want honesty. (We want people to have the conversations they need to have, not only those that are comfortable and easy.)
- We want true empowerment. (We want people to think, be accountable, and drive development in themselves and others.)
- We want participation. (We want active engagement that invites contribution, problem-solving and focused action.)
- We want to focus on results. (We don’t just want to talk and make everyone feel warm and fuzzy. We want to do better as a business.)
- We want to learn from our mistakes. (We want to be open to feedback and learn as we try new things.)
- We want innovation and excellence. (We want everyone to find better ways to do what we do every day)
What they are asking is that everyone spends more time driving assertively. But organisations too can overcompensate as they seek a more productive culture. It might go something like this. The organisation realises it needs to change the legacy of autocratic management. Employees have learned to say very little, not to take any chances, raise innovative ideas, and not challenge authority. The organisation wants to introduce a culture that values people and ideas.
So, with air tickets and car-hire vouchers, the senior team attends a power-to-the-people conference. They are impressed by the power they could release into their organisation by allowing people the space to think, share ideas and be part of decision-making.
Back home, meetings become more inclusive and longer. Posters go up about how the company’s biggest asset is its people, and new reward schemes recognise people who live their values. Gifts and positive reinforcement abound, even for those who have tried but not succeeded. But results go down rather than up.
After doing their best, the management team becomes increasingly impatient when this new leadership style doesn’t get the results they had in mind. So, they have an offsite meeting and decide it’s time to go back to telling people what to do. They had their chance to take the initiative and didn’t take it.
The organisation goes into another round of change initiatives to create a high-performance culture. The people had their chance and didn’t take it, so we’ll turn up the heat and, in the process, lose the people orientation they worked so hard to establish. What a pity when all they needed to do was add a better people orientation to their autocratic culture without losing a strong results focus.
The caution for organisations is the same for us all; beware of over-correcting and losing the advantage we already have. If a culture is autocratic, don’t lose the bias for action as you develop better people skills. And if the culture is mushy and soft, don’t create a high-performance culture that is arrogant and dictating; simply increase proactivity, decision-making and clear direction.
The Brave Choice
I believe we can all be assertive leaders in the workplace. And when we do, we can increase engagement, drive purpose, and improve our mental health. But to do so, we need to get out of our own way.
We need to give up needing someone else to change before we do. We need to give up waiting for someone to save us. We need to give up needing to win at someone else’s expense. We need to give up needing everything to be easy and comfortable before we stick our necks out. It means being willing to try, and fail, and try again without any guarantee of success. It means seeking purpose in a world tempting us with more stuff, more social media following, and an apparently easy way to success.
I think assertive leadership is the brave choice. It takes no bravery to be critical and judgmental. It takes no bravery to complain endlessly and sulk when things don’t go our way. It takes no bravery to gossip about people. It takes no bravery to blame our upbringing, our heritage, or our gender for the choices we make. It takes no bravery to blame our credentials and lack of opportunity for our lack of success.
I think it’s brave to walk a path that matters to us, to start again when we fail, to stick our necks when there is no guarantee of success, and to keep going no matter how tough it gets.
Read more about our Assertive Leadership Programme: https://www.careerwarriors.co.za/blogs/assertive-leadership/
©Andrew Bramley, December 2024. All Rights Reserved.