Assertiveness is a critical skill required by all professionals. It is crucial for patient safety and patient advocacy in healthcare provision and healthcare management, including self-advocacy by professionals.

Agility and compassion are said to be the skills required for the future. However, I would like to add “assertiveness” as one of those critical skills for the future for every health and care professional.

This post is about why it is vital for you as a professional to be assertive at work. It is also about how you can be more proactive in your communication and self-advocate to ensure that your colleagues and the community of patients you support are safer. 

Many professionals find it hard to be assertive. Assertiveness combines honesty, respect for oneself and others and the courage to express and own your opinions, intentions, and needs.

Passivity is viewed as a form of politeness by some people. However, at the other end of passivity is aggression, which has its own set of challenges. Aggression is not professional and has no place in work or anywhere for that matter. Aggression creates negative feelings in others, damages their emotions and affects work performance.

Therefore, becoming more assertive is a more attractive option for you as a professional and will benefit you, your team and your patients in the long run.

Why should you be more assertive and not passive or aggressive? 

Being more assertive can boost your self-esteem. 

Advocating for yourself and taking action to influence what happens in your work boosts your self-esteem in some research that looked at the relationship between assertiveness and self-esteem. Studies looking at the impact of assertiveness skills training in healthcare showed a positive relationship with health professionals' self-esteem. 

Being more assertive can strengthen confidence in yourself and your abilities. 

When you are assertive in work, you feel more in control. Feeling a lack of control at work can result in low confidence and high-stress levels. Assertiveness is an excellent form of taking control and responsibility. 

Being more assertive can help you increase your communication and build relationships with others on your team. 

Assertiveness is speaking up for what you want to happen and being open with your needs. This enables colleagues to get to know and understand you more.

Being more assertive can help you accomplish more for yourself and your team. 

Being open and communicating your opinions and needs at work helps ensure that you and your team are taking agreed actions to make them happen. You may be surprised at how ideas and opinions shared can boost individual and team effectiveness.

Being more assertive helps others to see you as a confident and capable professional. 

There are multiple benefits to being perceived as confident and capable. Your colleagues will have more trust in you and your abilities to support team outcomes. 

Being more assertive enhances your decision-making skills. 

Some professionals take the passive approach and often base their decisions on the least aggressive solution. At the other end of the spectrum, some professionals are biased towards the aggressive win-at-all-cost approach. However, assertive professionals take a more neutral approach. Extreme emotions do not taint their perspective, and this enhances their decision-making capability. 

Now you are more aware of the benefits of being more assertive at work; I will talk about how you might know if you are not being assertive.  

There is a limit to how much you can accommodate others before you feel you are being taken advantage of.

Becoming more assertive could be one of the skills that help you maintain a balance between having good mental health and meeting the demands of optimum personal performance and great teamwork.

The following signs may show that you need to become more assertive in the workplace.

You are not able to say "no." 

Professionals who are not assertive say "yes" more than they say no. They may feel like a victim and feel pushed into doing things you didn't want to do. Speaking up and choosing to say "no" to requests that may be inconvenient or go against your better judgement is a responsibility every professional has to make. 

You find it challenging to accept responsibility.

Professional who are not assertive often avoid taking responsibility in the workplace. They may find it difficult to tolerate criticism or compliments. A great way to increase your ability to accept responsibility is to enhance your self -confidence. When you are confident in yourself and your abilities, your ability to be assertive grows.

You always avoid conflict situations. 

When you avoid conflict situations all the time at work, you miss opportunities to speak up and be heard. Conflict is part of human interaction and should be expected where groups of people work together; in fact, it helps teams reach consensus and resolution. 

You say, "I am sorry" more than you should. 

Apologies are appropriate in some circumstances; however, er always apologising is problematic and undermines your confidence. Spend an entire day without saying "I am sorry" and keep track of the number of times you have been tempted to do so.

You are hesitant to share your opinion. 

When you're in your team meetings, you are afraid to speak and share your thoughts on the discussions. Let others in on what you think about the work the team is doing is positive. You may not have a strong preference for everything, but you can still share your opinion and perspective.

Now you are aware of where you are with your assertiveness skills in the workplace, if you have not identified with any of these signs and are thriving in this area – well done to you.

However, if you feel you identify with some of the signs I have mentioned above and need a bit of help with growing your assertiveness skills, then you may want to keep reading. 

Professionals, who struggle with being assertive in the workplace struggle to say "no" to some of the requests presented to them by colleagues and managers?

The three polite, but assertive ways I recommend you use to tell colleagues "no" when you need to are:

"No" to now, but "yes" to later.

A colleague or manager may ask you to do a piece of work, and depending on your workload, you can say: 

"I'm so busy at the moment doing X, Y and Z. Maybe someone else can help you. However, if you can't find anyone else to help, I will have some time towards the end of the week to help out." Letting the other person know you can't accommodate their request at that moment is polite and giving them the option to seek help elsewhere or wait until you can help, gives them options. 

"No" unless something changes.

A colleague or manager may ask you to take on more work or extra shifts, you can say:

"Thank you for asking me to take on extra shifts, However, I'm not currently able to take on this responsibility because of X, Y and Z. Can I come back to you if there's a change in my circumstances”? This choice of statements says "no" while still being very polite. 

"No" to attend a meeting or online event.

A colleague or manager may ask you to attend an online event or meeting you don't have the time for because of other priority work and looming deadlines. You can say: 

"Thank you for extending an invitation to the meeting/event, but I won't be able to make it. I'm already overscheduled doing X, Y and Z. However, I am happy to receive the minutes and give my feedback and comments”. This choice of statement lets your colleague or manager know that you are working on agreed priority items and overscheduled, but you are happy to make time at a later time to give your feedback and comments.  

Many other skills are required for you to succeed and thrive in your professional life. When working with others in large or small teams, assertiveness skills will help you speak up and advocate for yourself, your colleagues, and your patients or service users. Like any other skill, it requires practice.

I hope you have found this week's post valuable and it has given you more to think about on the skills needed to thrive in the workplace in 2021 and the future.

For further reading check out my favourite book titles on growing your self-esteem and assertiveness: The six pillars of self esteem by Nathaniel Brandon Branson, The Chimp Paradox by Professor Steve Peters and Practical Assertiveness for professionals in health care by Wendy Leebov. I may receive a commission if you buy through any of the links below. This is at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure .

I hope you find these book recommendations useful to grow your assertiveness skills and feel more control in 2021.

If you want to learn more about being assertive at work you can take my free 10 Day Assertiveness at Work Challenge course.