Assertiveness Many People Believe the Word "Assertive"

Assertiveness Many people believe the word "assertive" is a synonym for "aggressive" and that is not the case. Assertiveness also has been misunderstood to mean something like pushiness, or even bullying. The actual meaning of assertiveness relates to a person taking into account one's own personal rights and the rights of others. "Appropriate assertiveness" is an important skill, according to the book Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment (Zastrow, et al., 2009).

Assertive communication can involve verbal and nonverbal behavior, and it allows the speaker to make points "…clearly and straightforwardly"; as an assertive person, you have the right to "stand up for yourself without unwarranted anxiety"; you have the right to express ideas and opinions "openly and honestly"; you also have the right "to be wrong," and to "not be liked by everyone" (Zastrow, p. 312).

Reflective Account on Being Assertive My midwife / nursing position in the clinic puts me in many situations where I have to decide if I want to speak up about something I see or hear, or should I just stay quiet, say nothing, and let whatever it was pass without comment. I suspect every professional nurse and many others in professions where you are engaged with the public have faced the same issue that I face.

The question becomes -- when is it appropriate to assertively intervene in a situation, and when is it better to just let the situation alone because my intervention won't matter or won't solve anything? There is no perfect answer, of course, because every situation is different, and moreover, I simply rely on my own experiences and use my own professional and personal judgment.

The situation at the clinic is usually very calm, very professional, as one might expect because what we do at the clinic is deliver babies, support women that are pregnant and soon to deliver, and provide post-natal counseling and assistance. But there is a young RN who works four days a week and while she is very professional in all other ways, she brings an iPod to work and she plugs in her tiny earphones so she can hear whatever music it is that she enjoys.

The first couple times she (I'll call her Nora) worked the same shift as I did -- albeit she was often in a different room, one of the semi-private rooms for mothers after giving birth -- she came in and out of the areas where I worked and I was frankly stunned that she was allowed to listen to music while attending to her nursing duties.

It made me wonder what else was going on with Nora in the absence of the head nurse for that women's department -- a head nurse that was on a 2-month sabbatical. Finally I had reached the point where I needed to be assertive and to intervene. It was a Wednesday night, not particularly busy with only three pregnant women in the clinic receiving services from our staff. Nora had her tiny earphones in her ears and the iPod was in her nurse's smock pocket.

This time Nora was actually washing her hands and boogieing back and forth to a particular tune that she clearly was moved by. As she was rocking back and forth in my room, her whole body in motion for a few seconds, even snapping her fingers to the beat, I walked over to her and motioned for her to stop the iPod. "I need to remind you," I said to Nora, who was probably 15 years younger than me, "that you cannot have personal music playing in a nurse's ward.

Have you carefully reviewed the guidelines for nurses in this clinic?" Nora said no, she had not. She immediately pulled the earphones out, wrapped them around the iPod and put the player in her purse. "Are you going to report me?" she asked, looking very guilty and embarrassed. "No," I answered, "but please review the guidelines and leave your iPod in the car." She nodded "yes" and that was it. The next day that she worked we greeted each other in a friendly way and both of us smiled.

Using Johns' Model of Reflection, as to what I was trying to achieve: I frankly was embarrassed for our clinic and upset that a young nurse would be so cavalier as to bring her own person music to work. If I had not acted, I would have felt guilty. I needed to "pull rank" in the absence of the head nurse because I had the most experience in the clinic, and it was my ethical duty to intervene.

In the literature -- a peer-reviewed article by Columbia Business School professor Daniel Ames -- recent research reveals that having the "right touch" with interpersonal assertiveness can make all the difference. Ames asserts that showing "situationally appropriate assertiveness" toward colleagues, subordinates, and others can be effective in solving issues. In this situational case, I spoke to Nora out of the way so no one else could hear our conversation, and my comments were professional, low-key, thoroughly appropriate and in the end, effective.

What things affected my decision-making? In addition to knowing it is not permitted for a nurse to be listening to personal music technologies, I did not want.