Does being assertive mean I’m being a B?
Are you scared of standing up for yourself, giving clear directions at work, or setting boundaries because of the risk of coming across as a B?
Historically, women have been socialized to minimize our voices and have faced huge backlash for speaking out. But this theme is alive and well today and comes up in virtually every coaching session I have with female leaders, especially in male-dominated work environments.
Effective communication requires a balance between assertiveness and empathy. Being able to communicate assertively, while still being empathetic to the needs of the audience, greatly improves your leadership skills. Empathy is a superpower for so many women. The key is balancing this superpower with assertiveness in a way that feels authentic to you.
Do you have the “pleaser” inner critic or saboteur?
This makes it even harder to be assertive at work. The pleaser saboteur has a strong need to be liked and tries to gain approval by helping, pleasing, rescuing, or flattering others. Focusing on pleasing can stop you from trusting your intuition and effectively managing your team.
For example, one of my clients, a female Team Lead of an all-male software development team, found it very difficult to tell a new team member that the team had to follow their roadmap first before considering his long list of design suggestions.
What type of leader do you want to be? It all starts with self-awareness. You can’t grow and evolve as a person or a leader until you understand who you are and what is holding you back from fully stepping into your power.
By increasing your self-awareness, you can develop your leadership skills, craft an authentic leadership style, and learn to trust the deep wisdom of your intuition. But more needs to be done by us, as a society, to remove the longstanding link between assertiveness and the B word that hurts female leadership.
I welcome your comments 😊
