The key to success is dependent on how you handle each situation you face. If you want success for yourself and your employer, you need to be assertive. Not submissive or aggressive.
Assertiveness is defined as recognising your own and the other person’s rights and responsibilities.
Submissiveness is failing to stand up for your rights.
Aggression is when you stand up for your rights but ignore others’. It is also aggression if you ignore your responsibilities but not others’.
The word rights in a work environment are about the rights of the management to manage its employees, and the rights of the employees to be treated fairly.
For instance, you have given to Raj, your subordinate, a statistical form to fill in the figures. When Raj completes and leaves the completed form on your table, you find a number of errors.
An assertive manner would be to say: “Raj, I would like you to complete this form again because there are several mistakes”. A submissive manner would be to say: “Raj, would you be able to find some time to make changes on the form?”
An aggressive manner would be, if you said to Raj: “How dare you give me such rubbish work? It is full of mistakes,” and you say nothing more. This does not clarify what is to be done next. You have neither shown Raj how the mistakes should be corrected nor indicated the next step. Moreover, your remark is rude. He is likely to feel hurt and humiliated with such an attitude. This could lead him to either give up on you or find a job where someone will explain the mistakes to him and allow him to correct them.
On the other hand, a submissive manner would be if you do not say anything to Raj; instead, you find excuses in your mind not to tell him anything, and you correct the errors yourself. If you do this, there's nothing worse. Firstly, it is his task and not yours; secondly, your time is more valuable than his; thirdly, he will not learn anything because you have not warned him. The net result is that the organisation's productivity suffers.
For the next example, the organisation cannot be named for obvious reasons. It had a female employee who often took 1.5 hours for lunch to meet her boyfriend, but never worked late to make up the lost time. Her team leader regularly reported this to the Personnel department, but they never took any action against her. One day during her lunch hour, she had a violent row with her boyfriend in a restaurant. The police were called in. The police phoned her employers to check whether she was employed by them and reported her violent behaviour. The girl’s long lunches and this violent incident were more than sufficient to sack her, but the organisation never took any action despite its productivity loss. They thought that dismissal might be interpreted as racial discrimination. After all, the girl was an immigrant!
To protect productivity, an organisation must be assertive. If an employee makes mistakes, help him to correct his mistakes and warn him that repeated mistakes will lead to dismissal. Such an approach would influence an employee to improve because it helps him to protect his job, and become a better employee.
In summary, it is your right to complete your job in your own way, provided you are meeting the objectives of the organisation. It is your right to have a say in selecting people who will work for you and expect a good standard of work from them.
Your responsibilities are to use your time at work productively and to achieve the objectives stipulated by the management, to learn from your mistakes and not repeat them and to adopt the best practices used by your colleagues.
If you are a team leader, you should assertively give instructions to your subordinates. If you are unable to, you must learn it before becoming a team leader. Otherwise, you would not be able to take the initiative and could lose opportunities for your employers.
Please note that if you refuse work out of laziness, it will be easily noticeable. But if you are overworked, and if you do not refuse work, you will soon end up with a pile of work which is unattended. Explain to your boss that this would cause complaints from clients. If you are honestly saying NO, you do not need to find a long explanation.
Keep in mind that your boss has the right to check whether you would be able to do the extra work. So be fair and assertive, but do not be unfair because that would be aggressive.
Good luck.
