Duration: 1 Day
Time: 8:30am-4:00pm

Speak Up, Set Boundaries, and Influence with Respect

“Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind” — Brené Brown

Most workplace stress isn’t caused by the work itself. It is caused by what goes unsaid. The moment you agree to “just one more thing” when your plate is already full, the meeting where you have an important point but talk yourself out of it, the email you rewrite repeatedly because you don’t want to sound “difficult”, the feedback you delay until frustration leaks out in the wrong way. Over time, these small silences cost you credibility, energy, and opportunities, and they can gradually damage working relationships too.

This course teaches you how to turn assertiveness into a practical, learnable skill. You will learn how to communicate with calm clarity, set boundaries without guilt, and handle pushback without becoming defensive or aggressive. Through realistic workplace scenarios, simple language frameworks, and confidence-building practice, you will walk away able to say what you need to say respectfully, professionally, and with impact, whether you’re speaking to a colleague, a client, or a senior leader.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

For professionals who want to communicate with more confidence and less anxiety, including:

• Team members who struggle to speak up in meetings or challenge decisions
• Supervisors and managers navigating workload, accountability, and performance conversations
• HR, L&D and people leaders building healthier communication norms
• Customer-facing and stakeholder-facing professionals managing tension and expectations
• Professionals working across culture, language, hierarchy, and power differences
• Anyone who wants to be direct without being seen as aggressive

HOW YOU WILL BENEFIT

• Develop a clear understanding of assertiveness and how it differs from passivity, aggression, and passive-aggression
• Strengthen your ability to speak up without guilt, over-apologising, or over-explaining
• Enhance emotional self-regulation so you can stay grounded in tense conversations
• Practise practical scripts for saying no, setting limits, and negotiating expectations
• Improve your feedback skills using simple, structured models that reduce defensiveness
• Build confidence in handling conflict, difficult behaviour, and high-stakes conversations
• Apply assertiveness tools in real workplace situations: meetings, email, managing upwards, and performance discussions
• Leave with a personal action plan to sustain changes beyond the training room

WHAT WILL BE COVERED

Finding your voice: what assertiveness really is

• Defining assertiveness as self-respect and other-respect in action
• The communication spectrum: passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, assertive
• Common myths that keep people stuck and how to challenge them

Your patterns under pressure: building self-awareness

• Completing an assertiveness self-assessment and setting a baseline
• Spotting your “easy” contexts vs your “high-risk” contexts
• Identifying the beliefs and fears that shape your communication habits

The psychology behind confidence: rights, worth, and fear

• Personal rights at work and what healthy entitlement looks like
• Self-worth and the internal permission to take up space
• Understanding the fears behind silence, appeasing, or blowing up

The neuroscience of speaking up: staying regulated when it matters

• The brain’s threat response and why assertiveness can feel physically risky
• Social triggers using the SCARF model
• Neuroplasticity and how new habits become your new default
• Self-regulation tools to widen your “window of tolerance” in real time

Context matters: assertiveness in South African workplaces

• Ubuntu and relational assertiveness: firm without losing humanity
• Race, power, voice, and the real risks some people navigate
• Gender dynamics and the assertiveness double bind
• Language and multilingual communication: strategies that support clarity

Words that work: assertive language frameworks

• “I” statements that reduce blame and increase impact
• The DESC framework for structured assertive conversations
• Additional verbal tools: broken record, fogging, negative inquiry, empathic assertion
• Time-buying language that prevents reactive yeses and emotional replies

Presence that matches your message: non-verbal assertiveness

• Body language that communicates calm authority
• Voice skills: pace, volume, tone, and confident pausing
• Congruence: aligning words, tone, and posture so you are taken seriously

Listening with backbone: assertive listening

• Listening as an assertive act, not a passive one
• Levels of listening and how to stay present under stress
• Active listening techniques to de-escalate and build trust

Boundaries without guilt: saying no with professionalism

• What boundaries are and why they protect performance and wellbeing
• Types of boundaries: time, role, communication, capacity, emotional
• The anatomy of an assertive no, plus practice scenarios you can reuse

Feedback without fallout: giving and receiving assertively

• Feedback as a skill of respect, not criticism
• The SBI model for clear, behaviour-based feedback
• Receiving feedback without collapsing, defending, or counter-attacking
• Building everyday feedback norms that support psychological safety

Conflict as useful information: difficult conversations done well

• Reframing conflict so it becomes productive instead of personal
• Conflict approaches and when each is appropriate
• A practical framework for difficult conversations that stays respectful and clear

Be Assertive at Work

• Assertiveness in meetings, email, and written communication
• Managing upwards: speaking to authority with confidence and tact
• Handling difficult behaviours without escalation
• Sustaining change: setbacks, wellbeing, and continuous growth
• Building your personal assertiveness action plan