Detailed Course Outline
Course benefits:
Assertive behaviour in the workplace enables us to enjoy a respectful and beneficial working relationship with our team, our customers, and indeed anyone with whom we must cooperate to get things done. Assertive behaviour helps us to handle difficult interpersonal situations where we assert our own 'rights' and respect the rights of others.
Such behaviour arises out of a better understanding of why people act in the way they do and through an understanding of how to keep our own emotions under control enabling us to focus on, and address, the issues in hand.
This one day course will enable you to recognise when assertive behaviour is called for, behave assertively in different situations and through this behaviour achieve a positive outcome. You will develop and demonstrate your skills through a combination of role-play, discussion and instruction.
This course is aimed at anybody who wants to improve his or her assertiveness both in and outside of the workplace.
There are no pre-requisites for this course.
This course will enable you to improve your handling of situations where assertiveness is required. On successful completion of the course, attendees will be able to:
- Say 'no'
- Handle conflict and disagreement
- Ask for help
- Be heard
- Communicate unpopular decisions
- Handle negative feelings and behaviour
- Introduction to Assertiveness - What assertiveness is and why it is important; situations where assertiveness will lead to positive and acceptable outcomes; how assertiveness can reduce stress, increase confidence and ease the handling of a difficult situation
- The Assertiveness Model - Behavioural Types - Passive, Aggressive, Assertive and Passive/Aggressive; how to recognise these types of behaviour; how others label you through their reading of the way you act and the body language you exhibit; four key indicators - eye contact, tone, posture and phrasing
- Behaviour - Why we behave as we do; how different types of behaviour affect the outcomes achieved; understanding the situation and learning to adjust your behaviour to achieve a desired outcome; recognising our 'in-built' feelings about a given situation; how feelings can dictate negative behaviour; thinking before acting; how we can think more assertively and use our thought process to influence our behaviour; knowing our rights as individuals and members of a team; respecting that other people also have rights and that theirs are similar to, or the same as, your own
- Assertive Behaviour - Staying in control; acknowledging and analysing the situation; responding to another persons wants by explaining how one feels and by describing wants of your own; using repetition to reinforce your message; using discrepancies and consequences to defuse a potentially confrontational situation
- Developing Assertiveness - How to develop your newfound skills; a reusable process for assertiveness and a process for improving your abilities over time; being assertive outside the working environment
Learning is achieved through a mix of lectures, discussion, exercises and simulation.