Good leadership and assertiveness

If you’re a leader, you might have an assertiveness problem, according to a recent study published in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Researchers Daniel Ames of Columbia Business School and Francis Flynn of Stanford Graduate School of Business asked workers for their views on colleagues’ leadership strengths and weaknesses. The most common strengths cited by respondents were: intelligence, self-discipline and charisma.

Ames and Flynn found that when it came to weaknesses though - there was one big “winner” - assertiveness. The researchers believe that assertiveness got the top spot because leaders and potential leaders get it wrong in both directions. Overall, the researchers found that assertiveness was clearly referred to in more than half of the descriptions of weakness (in one study in the series nearly 1,000 comments were coded about leadership behaviour). Of the comments about assertiveness, 48 percent cited too much assertiveness as the problem, while the rest described too little.

“Assertiveness dominated reports of leadership weaknesses, though it wasn’t nearly as common in colleagues’ comments about strengths. When leaders get assertiveness wrong, it’s glaring and obvious, but when they get it right, it seems to disappear,” said Ames. “We say it’s like salt in a sauce: when there’s too much or too little, it’s hard to notice anything else, but when it’s just right, you notice the other flavours. No one compliments a sauce for being perfectly salted, and it’s just as unusual for a leader’s perfect touch with assertiveness to attract much notice.”