To Assert is to Communicate

An interesting article about the false assumptions of assertiveness in relationships by Dr. Moneim El-Meligi. Sun Tzu once said,"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." Therefore, by understanding how you communicate with others and how others receive it is tantamount to being successful in every aspect of your social life. Enjoy the article!


Firstly, there is the tendency to equate assertiveness with aggressiveness, bullishness, domination or confrontation. You can assert yourself in the most effective fashion by a joke, silence, or making a firm statement with no anger or challenge. The issue is not to assert oneself at any price. The core issue is to stand up for one's own values, protect one's legitimate rights or correct misperceptions.

One should thus be dear about what needs to be asserted and to whom. The realisation that your rights are being denied or threatened by another person would be the start. You would then benefit by asserting your right. Meanwhile assertive behaviour should take an effective and sociaIised form. Assertiveness in concrete terms is communication.

Assertiveness does not have to be expressed as an open hostile act. You can put an arrogant person in place by warning him, silencing him, making him laugh or waiting for the appropriate time to educate and correct a misperception. There is also humility which is the pinnacle of assertiveness and the creative synthesis between two opposite character traits: the drive to dominate on one hand and on the other, the tendency to submit to the will of others. Humility strips both attitudes of their negative features and retains only the positive inherent in both. In humility, there is thus the courage of dominance without aggressiveness and the deference of submissiveness without meekness or fear.

Secondly, it is often believed that assertiveness is the opposite of submissiveness, timidity or compliance. In other words if you fail to show assertiveness in a fair number of situations, this would indicate that you are either timid, compliant or submissive. Here we ignore a host of values that transcend both extremes such as prudence, modesty, forgiveness or humility.

Assertive behaviour will affect others with whom you have established relationships. You may think that assertiveness will jeopardise a peaceful though unsatisfactory relationship. Assertiveness does not antagonise if it is functional, rational and expressed with sensitivity to the other person's feelings and social standing. There is a common tendency to identify assertiveness with aggressiveness. This is because we are not in the habit of giving candid feedback when we have to. So we wait until "we cannot take it anymore." As a result, our delayed feedback is usually expressed in a hostile manner.

Assertive behaviour takes place in a social context. By definition, assertiveness is a way of relating to other individuals in specific social contexts. In these contexts, behaviour of sociaIised people is usually governed by values that regulate assertive behaviour as well as other behaviours. We must thus assert ourselves in the most culturally refined way.

Problems often arise when assertiveness takes an adversary or competitive form. This is the negative form of assertiveness which arouses envy, rivalry or overt hostility. Overbearing pride or exaggerated self- importance is very likely to characterise assertiveness with insolence, disdain or contempt. The situation deteriorates further if the assertive person is deficient in empathy or sensitivity. Idealism with rigidity and excessive belief in one's self righteousness brings about retaliatory measures. Taking empathy and grace out of assertiveness breeds obnoxious behaviour. That explains why the loss of friendships and support is often the negative side effect of therapy courses in assertiveness.

The naive individual changes his behaviour abruptly in a way that confounds his friends or alienates his relatives at a time when they are badly needed as a relationship is never a finished event. It develops in time as a result of symmetry of influence, mutual understanding, reciprocity, giving and receiving feedback. A relationship is enriched to the extent that each partner serves as a mirror to the other through which both partners can examine their individual behaviour before they face the public. Carl lung put it briefly and eloquently: "Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible."