Aggressive vs Assertive

Hi. Thank you again for joining us at the Australian Institute of Insider Threat. Today we're going to explore human behaviour where we're going to dive into the different shades of grey and examine the fine line between right and wrong. Hi, my name is Boz Fischer and today I have Peter Natra. Welcome.

Thank you.

In this video we're going to explore the fine line between aggression and assertiveness. Two behaviours that can shape how we interact with one another. We will uncover the behaviours impact from a personal and professional and look at the strategy for becoming assertive without being confrontational or hostile. Fantastic. What do we mean by, from a definition perspective about aggression and assertiveness and what are the differences?

Yep. So aggression is more about dominance and control and it becomes a way of being and it becomes a way of managing. Many people manage that way. Whereas assertiveness is about setting boundaries. The way it was taught to me was it's like a fruit bowl.

Okay.

So if you have pieces of fruit, your apples, your oranges, your pears, all that sort of thing, sitting on the kitchen bench, they'll roll off, they'll go off on their own little tangent, something will happen, somebody will knock something. Whereas if you've got them in the fruit bowl, they're still free to roll around, but inside of their boundaries and nothing untowards happens. Those oranges, apples and pears are still happy to move around inside the fruit bowl.

Yeah.

Which is, if you translate that to an organizational experience, people are still able to be creative inside of the environment. That is the boundary.

Yeah. It's a great metaphor. I like that.

Thank you.

Are there specific traits or personality profile that distinguishes this person or from someone being aggressive to someone who's assertive?

So somebody who's assertive is aware of themselves, is self aware. They, they understand where they sit in the scheme of things and they are self confident in what they are. They're quite confident in projecting this is the way it is. And they're quite confident if somebody challenges them to say this is why we do that. Whereas somebody with aggression, there's almost a sense of inferiority. They're compensating for the fact that they can't do that. So there's almost a low self esteem that's going on there. And oftentimes people who become aggressive have actually been promoted or installed above their capacity.

Yeah.

Now the good news is obviously, you know, that can be trained, but a lot of people are just parachuted into roles, they have no idea how to handle it. They have no idea why this happens. So it's just going to be it's my way or the highway, as we said before.

Yeah, okay, cool. Is there a some form of misunderstanding or one behavior being construed as another? So could someone who's being assertive be construed as being aggressive?

Depends on how sensitive the recipient is. I mean, there's two sides to the equation. Some people can be very, very thin skinned about things as well too. But at the same time, you do need boundaries. You do need to know what the road rules are. You know, here in Australia we drive on the left hand side, whereas in America you drive on the other side of the road. So if you go against those boundaries, if you go against those road rules which are generally accepted, strange things start to happen. Then you have some countries where road rules are more like guidelines. But anyway. But that kind of assertiveness means that there's order, that there's rhythm, that there is a smooth flow. Things work the way that they're supposed to go. Whereas with aggression, you never really know where you are.

Okay, okay.

You can walk in and depending on how many cups of coffee this particular person has had, you might have a really great conversation or you might have a blow up.

Okay. How does sort of the culture or the societal conditioning play a role in the behavior of either being aggressive or assertiveness?

A lot of people, well, most people model what's being modeled to them.

That's true.

So if somebody walks into a situation, they will bring to themselves the resources that they've experienced and they will fly those. They will take them out for a run and if it seems to work, they'll continue on with that. Many times, especially people who are in the aggressive side of things will say, well, it's working perfectly for me now.

Correct.

Why do I need to learn a different way?

Correct. Or why even change?

Why even change? And whereas the people who are assertive will say, so these are the boundaries, but they're open to somebody turning around and saying, but have you looked at this aspect of things? Oh, okay, maybe we need to shrink or extend the boundaries here a little bit. So there's a flexibility there. But everybody knows what's going on.

So what are the effects of someone who is displaying a behavioral aggression to maybe to the recipient from a perspective of communication and dialogue and cooperation and also from a conflict side.

So most people will shy away from a conflict, highly charged, angry kind of an emotion. So a lot of people will walk away from that with half an understanding of what it is that they're supposed to be doing just to get away from that expression of behavior. And that then can cascade into all sorts of different things. It also means that people will be not able to go back. I mean, would you want to report that you've had a failure or something didn't work to a person that was explosive when they. It doesn't work that way.

No, no, no.

So your lines of communication are all one way, generally speaking. And that's not a healthy situation.

No, it's not. Is there a situation where aggressive behavior sort of emerges as the sort of the standard template or the de facto.

It comes down to the hierarchy. So people will model what happens to them. So if, for instance, a middle manager has a higher up manager who is aggressive, it takes a great deal of discipline for that individual to then pull themselves together and become assertive as individual, collaborative, assertive. And this is the way we go. There are some very talented middle managers that do that really well. But it's a hard job.

How difficult is that then for someone who wants to be assertive, maybe in a specific situation, but does not want to step into that sort of next stage where the big perceive as aggressive. Is there a strategy or.

Yeah, it is about how you approach the subject. So if you walk into a situation with a raised voice, with a projection of anger, with a projection of being unhappy about something, then automatically people will see that as an aggressive stance. As if. Whereas if you walk into a situation and say, okay, we need to talk about something, this is what we need to talk about in a reasonable, calm, rational way, people will still get on high alert, but it won't go over the top.

Yeah. So how can the behavior of either assertiveness. Maybe we can look at it both ways, be beneficial. So assertiveness and aggression be beneficial to their surroundings or to their organization?

Yeah. It comes down to. You've got some tools.

Yes.

You need to know when to use them. I'll give you a little example from a parental life. At one point in time, I took my eldest to Frankfurt, but I set up with her. I said, there are going to be times when I'm going to say to you that something that sounds like a command, I'm telling you right now. Yes, there will be times. I can't explain it to you because my daughter loves explanations. And sure as eggs. We were in Frankfurt and we were crossing the street and this lorry comes spiraling down and I just took her by the hand.

I said, move.

And she looked at me and I go. We ran across the road. And then she looked me in the eye, she said that was one of those times. So that was aggressive. But there was a purpose. And funnily enough, the pre framing of that by being able to say, sometimes guys, we need to jump. And you're going to see me say jump in a not very polite fashion. Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about it afterwards.

But it's not so much aggressive, but it sounds more like assertive. Yes. With intention, with power. Yes, exactly. So my next question was basically that which is, can someone be assertive without being confrontational?

Yes, absolutely.

And as long as you can pre frame it from.

Absolutely. So it gets back to the confidence that somebody has in themselves. If you're being assertive about something that you're not sure about, two things can happen. You can become wishy washy about the boundaries, you can get cajoled out of those boundaries, which is not productive. Whereas if you're very confident with those boundaries, you say, look, appreciate what you're saying, but this is how it's done.

Yeah.

Or if you're not constantly certain about it and you have no way of mediating that, the language it can jump into. No, we're just doing it that way.

Yes, correct.

Yeah.

And there's always like, you know, why?

Why?

Why? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's look at sort of the long term impact onto their organization. But what is it if we look at someone who's assertive and being assertive. So a long time. Is there a negative impact to the organization compared to someone who's being aggressive from a psychological and emotional impact as well?

Yeah, look, you will always find that there's going to be rebels. No matter how assertive you are, people are going to go, yeah, well you know, maybe I can push the boundaries here.

Yes, correct.

And then you have to enforce those boundaries. But, but generally speaking, people who know what their playground looks like, whether we're now playing soccer or whether we're playing hockey, we know what game we're playing. That's the boundaries. People are much happier that way.

Correct.

And they'll come up with strategies, they'll come up with gameplays to extend the analogy a bit that fit inside of that model. As opposed to somebody who is being aggressive all the time. You never know on what field are we playing today?

Correct.

Are we playing softball? Are we playing soccer? Are we playing rugby league?

Yeah.

What are we doing?

It's a bit like pulling out the joker from the deck of the cards and so forth.

And you have that roulette situation going along where you think, oh, yes, I think we're going to be playing rugby league today. No, no, no. Today we're swimming.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. So when we sort of sign sum it up and look at the shade of gray between the motivation and manipulation, how do you see it as an overall arching behavior? How easy is it to sort of identify it?

Yeah, look, aggression is pure manipulation, and I'm going to be very rude here and break it down. It's actually an adult tantrum. Oh, okay.

I like it. Look, but you do get it with kids, too.

Funnily enough, they learn it that way. So if you have a little Johnny or little Jill coming up, I want that lolly, I want that biscuit, and you let that roll forward. If you reward that experience, then chances are that that experience will be repeated and potentially will be rolled forward into life. The negative aspect of assertiveness is you might get some people's noses out of joint.

Yes.

And that's fine, but at least everybody knows what's going on. And there is consistency.

Correct. There's certainty. That's right.

There's certainty. That's a good word.

Good. So with that, thank you very much. I hope you really enjoyed it, Peter. Thank you again.

Thank you very much.

And stay tuned for the next video.