Passing Passive Thoughts

The picture above is a good representation of passive people.  As I'm passive myself, I would have to say that a lot of the times, what is going on in our heads is not the same thing that we show to others.  We passives like to avoid conflict, even if it means that our own viewpoints might be overlooked or even ignored.  Minimizing the tension in a situation and a speedy, albeit sometimes incomplete, conclusion is what we strive for.  For example, I personally am very agreeable by nature, and have a hard time saying "NO" to anyone.  The biggest reason for this is, I think, the fact that I hate getting into awkward, tense conflicts, and would much rather agree to something which is in my mind small compared to the conflict that I'd have to go through if I fought for my point of view.  Of course, if the issue at hand goes against my core values, I will usually make my stance known, and if it is an especially strong subject to me, I will defend my view.



As it is, passive people do not run the world.  That is where assertiveness comes into play.  As I just mentioned, I will only be assertive if my core values are challenged, but in a leadership position, that is not enough most of the time.  A leader, in my opinion, needs to assert his power even when his ideology is not at stake.  Whatever the group is, be it a club or a company, for it to be successful, at least some form of direction is needed from the head of the organization.  By putting off conflict, issues would not be resolved in a timely manner, viewpoints that are not necessarily for the greater good might be adopted, and the group as a whole would be aimless.  It would also be unwise to be too assertive of course, as a closed mind would create pretty much the same problems.

In the end, though, one must not let themselves be swayed too much by others, and at least let some assertiveness come into play.  I think I did some of that by putting in the opinions I did in this post!