Bill was a talented, skilled and highly valued employee. His supervisor, Gary, was the nicest guy you could imagine. He was experienced and compassionate. There was just one problem; he detested confrontation and seldom took any corrective action when things started going wrong. He never told his team his expectations, maybe he didn't have any, but his people often hungered for direction. But everybody liked Gary, and that was his main goal.

Unfortunately, because of Gary's passive approach to management, Bill left his team to join a competitor and in an exit interview, he said; "I was always frustrated. I never knew what was expected of me." The next thing that happened was that Gary was fired, because his team failed, consistently, to meet assigned goals.

Managers, at all levels, are not as effective as they can be. If there is one reason that contributes most to this lack of effectiveness, I believe it is a lack of assertiveness. While working with a group of managers within a research organization, on a leadership development project, recently, we surveyed managers, their bosses and their direct reports to determine perceived strengths and weakness. For the most part, the managers were viewed as having many valuable strengths that their bosses and subordinates admired. There was, however, one area in which managers consistently got low marks - assertiveness.

Intrigued by this, we asked managers if they could explain why they and their peers were getting low scores in the assertiveness area. The managers were clueless. Most managers viewed assertiveness as aggressive and negative behavior. They perceived a low score as actually a positive statement. It wasn't!

Still wanting to better understand what was going on, we visited with subordinates of these managers to see if we could determine what was happening. It was here, that we began to understand what was going on. Subordinates consistently complained that they seldom had real clarity about what was expected of them and because they had no clear objectives, they seldom got praise and when they did it was often a complete surprise.

This story is repeated over and over again at all managerial levels and across all industries. Many managers fail their subordinates when it comes to assertiveness and in doing so never achieve the results possible. Seldom do these passive managers advance to more prominent leadership roles. As is frequently the case, the disease that results in a manager's ineffectiveness and the ineffectiveness of his team begins with the failure of the organization to provide training and education for the manager on the importance of being clear about what they want and why they want it.

Assertiveness training should be among the early efforts organizations make to develop managers. Managing with assertiveness is not a natural ability; it is a learned ability, a skill. There are 3 foundation beliefs that drive assertiveness among managers and potential managers:

Believing that it is important to take initiative as a manager
Believing that it is important, as a manager, to know what is important to them and why it is so
Believing that it is important to communicate wants, feeling and dislikes in a clear way without threatening or attacking.

Taking initiative and being assertive as a manager involves the development of a belief that managers should be proactive rather than reactive to people and events. The ability to anticipate and act is a key trait of a successful manager. Taking initiative involves risk. It is risky to move ahead without certainty of the outcome. A good example of taking initiative at a managerial level involves addressing poor performance by a direct report.

Many managers are reluctant to confront poor performance, but many subordinates want and need accountability to grow. Holding subordinates accountable for consistent, desired levels of performance is not a "nice-to-do" thing; it is a "must do" thing. Doing so as a manager involves understanding and expression of what you value.

Learning to express what you feel, think or believe, in a way that is not arrogant, but clear, is important. Understanding why you feel that way may be even more important. Managers should be encouraged to express and understand their values on a regular basis.

Learning how to communicate wants, feelings and dislikes in a clear way without seeming to threaten or attack is a skill or learned ability as well. Our experience has been that subordinates hunger for direction. They want to know what is expected of them and they perform poorly if they get neither.

Learning how to communicate the good and the bad in a way that people hear you and react positively is another learned skill.

In all, the beginning of assertiveness training is a clear understanding of these 3 foundation beliefs: Taking Initiative, Understanding and expressing values, and communicating wants and dislikes in a clear way without threatening or attacking. Managers who understand and become proficient with these skills are those that will likely emerge as future leaders of your organization.