ASSERTIVENESS SKILLS FOR MANAGERS

Description:
Effective Communication is a combination of knowing what to say and when to say it. Individuals who have successfully combined these two skills succeed as managers and supervisors in business today. Those who don’t continue to struggle are ineffective in their daily tasks. This course provides practical communication skill enhancement; participants learn to take charge without being pushy.

This course teaches participants to assertively address conflict and make better decisions. Confidence rises when participants learn the techniques of assertive communication. They gain respect from peers, loyalty of employees, support from upper management and increased effectiveness with customers. This is an interactive, challenging course that combines a mix of short lectures, small group discussions, case studies, exercises and role plays, and focuses upon improving skills for use back on the job.

Course Objectives:
At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• Identify the rights and responsibilities of positive, powerful and assertive communication
• Develop and use a personal communication strategy on-the-job that is based on psychological theory and the realities of workplace communications
• Apply the skills of assertiveness learned in this seminar through case studies and self-assessment instruments
• Understand and avoid poor communication strategies and apply remedies to improve their communications at work
• Be better listeners to the needs of himself/herself, team members, and customers
• To handle proactively conflict and difficult situations
• Provide effective feedback during conflict and anger situations, to say what needs to be said, without flaming a situation
• Apply program learnings back on the job through development of an action plan

Schedule
(9am-5:00pm):

Day One

Introduction and Orientation

The Role of Communication and Assertion in Organizations
+ Assertion continuum
+ Taking a more assertive approach

Foundations of Assertive Behavior
+ Self-perception and self-esteem – “Self-Esteem Inventory”
+ Emotional intelligence – “Developing Your Emotional Intelligence Inventory”
+ Assessing Assertive Behaviors - “Interpersonal Response Inventory (IRI)”
+ Assertiveness Principles
+ Common assertive situations
+ Increasing assertive options
+ Descriptive recognitions
+ Relationship assertions
+ The “spectrum response”
+ Using the “johari window”
+ The role of feedback and disclosure

Practicing Assertive Behaviors
+ Exercises and role plays

Assertive Listening
+ Role of listening in assertion
+ Developing empathy
+ Skills and attitudes for becoming an assertive listener

Day Two

Assertive Conflict Resolution
+ Images of conflict
+ Destructive vs constructive conflict
+ Conflict situations
+ Definition of conflict
+ Assumptions
+ Causes

Assessing Your Conflict Management Style – “ Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument”
+ Your strengths – areas to improve
+ Developing a more flexible style

Resolving conflict assertively -strategies and techniques
+ Styles and Strategies For Dealing With Conflict
+ Avoiding
+ Accommodating
+ Competing
+ compromising
+ collaborating
+ Identifying conflict positions
+Tips for exploring underlying concerns
+Case Study
+Practice exercise

Getting from no to yes
+Listen actively
+Win yourself a hearing
+ Work to a joint solution
+ Practice exercises

Personality style and assertiveness
+ “Psycho-geometrics assessment”
+ Strengths and weakness
+ How assert effectively with each style

Developing An Action Plan For Application At Work