84Be “Ask Assertive,” Not “Tell Assertive”

When communicating the decision to others, the real authoritarian style would be to take the army sergeant approach: “Okay, that’s my decision. I don’t care if you don’t like it, just do it.”

That might work for the Army sergeant (I doubt it works very often!), but it will not work for most of us. Instead of “telling” people what to do, we should be asking them to support the decision willingly. That’s the difference between “tell assertive,” when we simply tell people the decision and expect them to execute it, and “ask assertive,” when we ask them to participate in executing the decision.

Assignment

Recall decisions you had forced on you. Were you enthusiastic about them?

One of the biggest differences ...

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