Balancing Warmth and Assertiveness in Leadership

[00:00:01] Karen: Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

[00:00:08] Paul: I'm Paul Tevis. 

[00:00:10] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig.

[00:00:11] Paul: Each episode we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, can I be warm and assertive at the same time? 

[00:00:20] Karen: So this is one of those questions that we think the answer is yes, it's possible to be warm and assertive at the same time, and maybe not today. Maybe not in this situation. Maybe not with the amount of energy I currently have available to me. Maybe not for any number of reasons, and yet warmth and assertiveness are not antithetical to each other.

[00:00:39] Karen: They're just two different axes that when we're at our best pay attention to. And most of us are far better at one than the other. Not necessarily the same one. My sort of young unconscious self, you peel away all the things I've learned about how to be better and I tend towards assertiveness and very direct, that kind of thing.

[00:01:00] Karen: And Paul on the other hand, peel away all of his learned better self and he is warm and fuzzy and lovely and agreeable and maybe not assertive when he needs to be. So right here with us, I think where we land in a very similar place in our goal of how he'd like to be with the world is pretty similar.

Why Most People Struggle with Warmth and Assertiveness

[00:01:18] Karen: And we start from kind of opposite directions. So I think what we're saying is it's possible, but it's not likely unless we're putting some effort into making it happen.

[00:01:28] Paul: Yeah, I think one of the big challenges around this is I think we have painted in our heads the idea that these trade off against each other, right? That if I am doing things, where I'm being assertive, right? I'm actually being clear about what it is that I would like to do or what I think we should do next.

[00:01:45] Paul: Where I'm putting things out there about, here's what I would like, or here's what I would want. Here's my thoughts, my opinions that will hinder my likability that that will get in the way of the relationship, right? That I might worry that I'm seen as selfish or self-centered or things like that. That those trade off against each other.

The Psychology of Likability vs. Clarity

[00:02:03] Paul: A lot of the thinking around this today is really influenced by Alison Fragale's newest book, Likeable Badass, which I'm reading right now, and really enjoying, but she digs into a lot of the social science behind this and the psychology that shows. While we think that those trade off against each other, there's actually a fair amount of experimental research that shows that they don't, that they are actually separate axes.

[00:02:24] Paul: That it is possible to be both warm and direct at the same time. Oftentimes this means you've gotta do both, right? You've gotta say something like, for example, in the situation where, I'm giving somebody feedback on a presentation that they gave. It might be really easy for me to do both, right?

[00:02:41] Paul: To be both warm about, that was great. You know, I really loved, how you stepped into this like to express care , to express how I feel about the other person, and at the same time also be assertive in the sense of being specific about what it was that they did and the impact that it had. My natural tendency, as Karen says, is to be warm, right?

[00:03:02] Paul: Rather than assertive. And so by default, if I don't think about this, I'm just gonna say, that was great. But it's not gonna give the other person much to work with. But if I slow down, if I think about it, that sort of my natural warmth can just go on autopilot. It's gonna happen. And that means I can devote my cognitive energies towards being assertive, being clear, right?

[00:03:23] Paul: Being direct. Saying, these are the pieces that really landed and here's why, and here's what you did, and lemme give you the specific feedback around that. So it is possible to do both at the same time, and it can be tricky.

Giving Feedback: Clear Without Crushing Connection

[00:03:35] Karen: And I think in that same example, so somebody's just given a presentation, Hey Karen, what'd you think? I'm gonna say, well, I liked this and this, and I didn't like that and that. And if I just stop there, I run the risk that they feel put down. We know humans tend to attend to the negative more than the positive, which is true both of me and how I took in their presentation and true of the person I'm talking to and how they're gonna hear my feedback.

[00:03:58] Karen: So the negative just got amplified twice if neither of us paid attention to it. But if I'm thoughtful about the warmth piece, I can say, wow, I see you put a lot of effort into it and this and this worked. Like I can really be thinking about not just giving specific positive feedback. Maybe there wasn't anything that I actually liked about it, but I still wanna say, I see you really put passion into this and you're trying to improve and I really wanna help you do that.

[00:04:21] Karen: Right? So there is that relationship connection frame looking more toward what is useful to that person being on their side, like aligning there and following that with the clear. So I think where this went wrong was da, da da, da da. You know what those things weren't very clear and whereas, you know, Paul, as you said, you have, the warmth is gonna happen for you.

[00:04:43] Karen: That can be an autopilot. For me, the direct clear, I saw the negative thing and I'm ready to say it. That's there. It's gonna be an autopilot. And I don't mean it ever as a put down, it's not that I am demanding or judgmental or dislike people or want them to fail, like none of that is actually the case.

[00:04:59] Karen: But I tend to be very sort of efficient and clear and direct. And you asked how it was, I'm telling you the answer. Isn't that what you wanted? That's where I land and it doesn't work because it doesn't actually help them. To feel put down and judged and you know, now I'm a failure or whatever the thing is.

From Blunt to Thoughtful: Reframing Assertive Communication

[00:05:18] Karen: Or now Karen doesn't like me, or now Karen's not a safe place to go to get feedback next time, or all those things that can come with that. And so hopefully if you're someone who knows me well today, you wouldn't label that as my usual way of being. 'Cause I've been working on it for 25 years or so. I have known about myself that super direct.

[00:05:38] Karen: Like this is how it is, this is what's expected, this is what we need to do. You've broken your contract, this is not what the contract said, whatever. That's not as useful as, so when do you think you can finish that thing or what do you, where are we gonna go from here?

[00:05:52] Karen: I see that this is still supposed to happen and it hasn't yet. Like the direct can be in there, but how do I frame it with the pieces that maintain the relationship, that turns out to be really important. And as long as I'm in reasonably good space, I have my usual amount of energy I've spent. As I said, I spent a couple of decades practicing this, so it's not as hard as it used to be.

[00:06:13] Karen: And I have the cognition to do that. That's great. And just this morning, I got up pretty sleepy, didn't get enough sleep last night. And the second time I reached for the dish towel that wasn't there because my husband had again removed it from the place. I'd just put it, I snapped at him. It wasn't a big deal.

[00:06:28] Karen: He didn't mean to, the reason he had the dish towel was the first one he was putting things in the laundry that needed to be in the second time he was drying the dishes. Why would I complain about that? But I wasn't all there. I wasn't my best self. And in that moment, I did not have the capacity to be direct and warm. I just did direct.

Energy and Emotional Capacity in Difficult Conversations

[00:06:45] Paul: And I think that is where the trade off can happen, right? Even though these are independent axes from the standpoint of the content and the way that we do things, where they can trade off against each other is sort of our energy, right? Our ability to come to the situation and do both of those things.

[00:07:02] Paul: So going back to, well, my default is to be pretty warm, and express care and do things like that. But not in every situation. Right? So if I am in a situation where I have to pay attention to both of them, where I both need to be direct and need to find a way to express care in a situation where, quite frankly, I'm not feeling it right.

[00:07:24] Paul: I had a situation very recently with a neighbor where we have had some repeated disagreements over appropriateness of doing things on my property. And I realized I needed to give some feedback about something that had happened and I had not been clear about those things in the past.

[00:07:40] Paul: And this was a time when I needed to be clear and I needed to be assertive. And that was gonna be a struggle for me because that's generally my growing edge, right? It's the axis where I need to pull a little more energy. And I was also pretty upset, right? I was not super happy about this and I was not gonna get any happier.

[00:07:57] Paul: And so while it might have been possible to express that in a way that was carrying and connecting and things like that. I made the deliberate choice to not focus on that because I knew that I didn't have the energy to try to do both at the same time. And I needed to focus. I needed to prioritize being clear that this was a boundary that had been crossed.

Choosing What to Prioritize: Warmth or Assertiveness

[00:08:20] Paul: And I could have, you know, looking back on it, said things like, I know that you were just trying to help, I understand that you've got a lot going on. Like, I could have said some of those things I didn't. And I instead said, what you did here is not okay. Here's why it's not okay.

[00:08:36] Paul: Here's what I need you to do and not do in the future. And so I really focused on that, and that's a case where I can see how maybe on my best day, I might have been able to express warmth and assertiveness at the same time. But in that moment, right then and there, I couldn't, and I accepted that, and I went, all right, I'm gonna focus on this one because that's all I've got the energy for right now, and I need to do that.

[00:09:01] Karen: And I do think that when you've gotten some awareness about this and started to pay attention to, okay, we landed in some disagreement or some tense situation or maybe even something that we didn't expect, but you didn't have time to stop and think and just had to be dealt with.

[00:09:15] Karen: Now some emergency in it or whatever. And then you look back on it and go, oh, wow, yeah, I wasn't assertive enough, or I wasn't likable enough, or I wasn't warm enough, or I wasn't clear enough, and you start to see a pattern. Then for me, what happened was I went through a period where I was like, okay, I know that in these situations, the danger to me is that I lose likability.

Identifying Your Communication Defaults

[00:09:37] Karen: And that's where I gotta focus. So when my little assertiveness gremlin starts to get really activated, and I know I don't have the capacity to do both. Like that's the thing we wanna reach for is the ability to do both. But in that moment that I know I don't have the capacity to do both. I reach for the one that's unfamiliar, but that will save me from the trouble that I tend to get myself in because that autopilot thing still applies.

[00:10:00] Karen: So even if I say, for me, I'm not gonna be clear today. That's not my job. I'm gonna just stay nice. I'm just gonna stay likable. I'm just gonna stay warm. Yeah. The thing I really think probably slips out 'cause I just can't, like that's just there, but there was a period of my life where I worked hard at warm all the time because I was really frustrated with losing on the other side.

[00:10:23] Karen: And it was the same people who thought it was fabulous for me to be direct and clear and strong leader and assertive right up until the moment they didn't, that were the maddest at me when they needed warmth and didn't get it from me. So I had to really work at cultivating that. And I suspect, Paul, that you could say the same thing, that there were points in your life where you're like, okay, the thing I might lose here is the assertiveness.

[00:10:42] Karen: I better just do the assertive thing.

Managing Perception in Feedback Conversations

[00:10:43] Paul: Yeah, a hundred percent. And it's interesting 'cause I actually work with a lot of managers who do the same thing.

[00:10:49] Paul: And that very clearly, like when they get stressed, they go into the expressing care and sometimes they just even get vague, right? So they're not actually really good about expressing care at that moment either. 

[00:10:58] Paul: But that fear, right, of like, oh, I'm gonna be seen as this thing that I really don't want to be. And, you know, one of the things I remember telling somebody at one point, they're like, well, I'm worried that, like if I say, you know what I'm really thinking about this and I give this person this feedback, they're gonna think that I'm just a jerk.

[00:11:14] Paul: And I'm like, you couldn't be a jerk if you tried. Right. But that's really the fear, of like, if I'm clear about this, then this thing will happen. And it's like, you have so much of that as you said Karen, like what I think is gonna come out, they're gonna know.

[00:11:29] Paul: But if I'm focusing on this other one, this is kind of the autopilot thing, right? Of recognizing like eh, it's not gonna be as bad as I think it's going to be. Right? If I know that I have a tendency to focus on likability and on warmth, If I go to work on being assertive, yes, someone might experience me as a little more direct, and clipped than usual. 

[00:11:52] Paul: But they're unlikely to go, wow, what a jerk, right. Sort of thing. And that was, you know, kind of the interaction that I had with my neighbor. For me, that was also the moment of like, it might be useful for him to experience me as a little less caring and warmth and agreeable right now because this is a serious thing.

[00:12:11] Paul: And so maybe I do want to come off as a little more abrupt, and a little more upset, because that may help us, you know, help this land a little bit better. But yeah, I do think that like when we're in those situations when we know ourselves well enough to know we have a tendency to fail one way, right? Ideally we want both. We know that if we just go in on autopilot that we're gonna fail this one way. It's really useful to focus on the other one.

Leadership Under Stress: Navigating Defaults and Dynamics

[00:12:36] Karen: And ultimately what we're aiming for there is balance. And so I think what we're saying is if we just aim for balance, we land heavily on the side. That is our natural tendency. If you're a sailor and you're headed into the current, you don't aim for the thing that you're aiming for.

[00:12:52] Karen: You aim for a thing that's opposite the current from it. Because as you aim for that, the current's gonna push you right. This is saying I'm already headed too much this way. I need to head too much the other way, and the current of my natural tendency will pull me back to target. But the target ultimately is the balance.

[00:13:11] Karen: It is to find those ways to stay caring and clear, or to stay direct and assertive and warm and likable all at the same time because they aren't antithetical. They tend to land in different people at different moments. So I think almost all of us, if we're gonna achieve balance between the two, we have to be very thoughtful and conscious and effortful about that.

[00:13:36] Paul: The thing that I'll add to that is it is important to remember that this is about how the other person experiences us, right? I might be holding all kinds of care for this person in my heart, right? But if it never comes out of my mouth, like it doesn't count effectively, we do need to make sure this is about what we're expressing and how it's landing with the other person.

[00:13:55] Paul: Yeah, and just that idea, I love that metaphor of like, we can't aim directly at the thing. We've gotta feel like we're going too far the other direction because the current will pull us back to it. I think that's a really great piece of advice, but also captures why it feels so weird and wrong to try to do that, to focus on the thing that we aren't naturally gonna do.

The Goal: Be Caring and Clear at the Same Time

[00:14:17] Karen: So we started with the question, can I be warm and assertive at the same time? And the answer is theoretically yes, in the moment, maybe not, but in the space that we talk about on this show is we're really looking for what do we aim for? What is the guiding thing that we're working toward? So what we're working toward is to be warm and assertive at the same time, or to put that into other words, clear and likable at the same time, or direct and caring at the same time.

[00:14:48] Karen: But can we do all of that and we wanna get better and better at that? And we recognize that most of us fall on one side or the other. We sort of arrive in early adulthood heavily, one or the other of those. And so if we're gonna get to that nice, balanced where we are both at the same time, we've got one that comes naturally to us and one that we've really gotta work on.

[00:15:11] Karen: And it's probably lifelong to keep working on it. And we wanna be in that space of just sort of constant feedback, hopefully from trusted safe people around us, because it is about how others are perceiving us. It's not about even how I intend to be in this case. It's really about how is it landing for the other person?

[00:15:28] Karen: What's it doing in the relationship space there and figuring out how to be conscious of that. So reading what's going on for the other person. Looking back, how'd that go? Okay, I need to adjust even further or maybe adjust back the other way. But the tendency is once we know ourself, when we feel like we've got it and we're doing it well and we're balanced, great, but if we are feeling like we have a capacity problem, we don't have the energy to really do both.

[00:15:54] Karen: You wanna really lean into the space where you know you're weak or where you're less likely to be in that space. Because you gotta lean that way so that by the time the current of your natural tendency pulls you back, you land on target, which is the balance of both.

[00:16:09] Paul: Well, that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis. 

[00:16:13] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig, and this has been Employing Differences.