What do I mean by strategic assertiveness?
I will explain it with an example.
An eighteen year old client arrived at my practice in an extremely distressed state. She told me that she had spoken up in class against unfair treatment on the part of the teacher.She said that she had worked till late the night before completing a homework assignment only to find that some of her class-mates had failed to complete their assignment but had not been punished in any way.
When she spoke up, her classmates who had not completed their work turned on her and said some hurtful things, whilst those who had done their work failed to support her. My client lamented that this was one of the few times she had managed to be assertive and it had turned into a disaster. She vowed to never speak up again!
I commiserated with her experience but suggested that it she might have predicted this outcome as it was to be expected that her outburst would not have been popular with the girls who were at fault. (Of course she was angry and frustrated at the time and was therefore not not thinking rationally). If she had managed to be more in control she would have probably realised that her outburst would have negative consequences in terms of her popularity with her peers!
The take home message from this example is:
Being assertive, and yet not antagonising or alienating others in the process, is a complex skill and is not easy to achieve. It requires a clear, rational mind, good anger-management and high frustration tolerance – all these are aspects of emotional intellengence (EQ).