The Who, What, and Why of Assertive Communication

We talked last week about receiving boundaries, people-pleasing, and self-esteem, and I promised this week we’d add in assertive communication to the mix. But before we discuss how to communicate assertively, let's answer a few questions. What is assertive communication? And why should you use it?

As it turns out, to understand assertiveness we need to talk about what it means to be aggressive, passive, and passive-aggressive. Let's take a look!

Aggressive communication is when you care about how you think and feel, without respect for the other person. Imagine that your partner asks you to pick up milk from the store on their way home from work so you can make dinner. If you answer aggressively, you might yell at your partner, tell them they shouldn't have forgotten milk when they went shopping, or tell them you don't care about their problems, and they can get their own milk.

Passive communication is on the other end of the spectrum – you care about how the other person is thinking and feeling, without respect for you. An example would be your partner asking you to pick up milk on your way home after a 12-hour shift, although they’re going to be home all day and don’t have plans. Instead of suggesting your partner make a run to the store while you’re at work, you agree to stop by the store, without regard for how tired you’re feeling.

Passive-aggressive communication is when a person is acting as though they care about you, when in fact they are only concerned about themselves. An example of passive-aggressive communication is using “I forgot” without an apology and making it right. For example, you ask your partner to stop by the store to pick up milk on their way home from work, so you can make dinner. Your partner agrees, but when they get home, they don’t have milk, and tell you, “Oh, I forgot to stop by the store.” Instead of apologizing and offering to go to the store, your partner gets defensive and says, “Well, why didn’t you go to the store today? I had to go to work, and all you did was stay home with the kids!”

Your partner is engaging in passive-aggressive communication, because when they agreed to pick up the milk, they acted as though they cared about you. But when your partner became defensive instead of apologizing, and didn’t offer to run to the store for milk to make it right, they made it clear that they care about themselves, without concern for you.

Assertive communication strikes a balance between caring about how you think and feel, and respecting how the other person thinks and feels. So, an example would be asking your partner to stop by the store and get milk on their way home. Your partner says they'd like to help you, but they won’t have time to take care of a phone call they need to make. You offer to make a phone call during the day so they won’t need to, and your partner picks up the milk for you on their way home.

Whether you’re a moving toward, moving against, or moving away personality type, you weren’t born with assertive communication skills. Moving against types tend to care more about how they think and feel than about others, so they tend to be more aggressive or passive-aggressive. Moving away types tend to detach from feelings, both their own and others, and their responses tend to be passive or passive-aggressive. Moving toward types struggle with assertive communication because they want to like others, and want others to like them. Like moving away types, this makes it hard for moving toward types to express their own thoughts and feelings. They tend to be more passive until they get frustrated, then swing to passive-aggressive or aggressive communication.

If you’ve been working on keeping your drawbridge at a 45-degree angle, and you’re noticing what others say, you’ve been working toward assertive communication. What others say is how they think and feel. Deciding whether you think what others say is true and helpful is how you think and feel. Putting the two of these together – noticing what others think and feel, and balancing that with how you think and feel – is foundational to assertive communication.

Knowing the difference between aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, and assertive communication, and knowing your tendency to be passive, aggressive, or passive-aggressive, gives you the "who, what, and why" of assertive communication. Next week we'll take a look at the "how" of assertive communication, which will help you turn the spinner to you. Until then, I encourage you to continue working on keeping your drawbridge up at a 45-degree angle, notice what others say, and apply the true-helpful test. Then, notice how you think and feel about telling others how you think and feel, and what you want and need. That's where we'll pick up next week!