CulturallyOurs Understanding the concept of assertiveness across cultures

Understanding Assertiveness Across Global Cultures

06.17.19
CulturallyOurs Understanding the concept of assertiveness across cultures

Cultural differences are the various practices, behaviors, beliefs, and expressions that are considered unique to a specific ethnicity, race or national origin. Cultural differences can range from the obvious (appearance) to subtle (behaviors). They exist across all walks of live – in a work environment, family as well as social setting. Earlier we shared how the concept of punctuality and time is viewed across different cultures – especially Western culture as compared to Asian culture. Today Viktoria Undesser of Lead Today Shape Tomorrow is talking to us about cultural assertiveness and how that plays out in social relationships around the world.

Cultural assertiveness is the ideology or belief on whether people are or should be encouraged to be assertive, aggressive, and tough or non-assertive, non-aggressive, and tender in social relationships. When you experience a cultural assertiveness that is different than your own you often feel discomfort.CulturallyOurs Understanding the concept of assertiveness across culturesFrom Viktoria,

I grew up in a tiny little village in the Austrian countryside surrounded by friends and family whom I had, for the most part, known all my life. It was a very monocultural upbringing where everyone knew everything about everyone (News travels faster between my grandparents and their siblings and cousins and great-cousins than it would if I put it on Facebook), everyone said what was on their minds and our teachers instilled in us to answer the questions we were asked as opposed to giving elaborate insights into the why, the how or the circumstances.

You can imagine the culture shock I experienced when going to Perú for my study abroad and living there for a year. My frustrations ran high as I complained to my family and friends back home: “They just never get to the point!” Flip the coin and my Peruvian friends would complain about me “Ugh, she’s SO rude! How can she say such things so directly?!” Not to worry – all of us learned a lot about culture and different forms of communication throughout that year. We eventually  learned to understand and appreciate each other’s communicating style and we are still friends to this day.

Frustrated and confused, I turned to one of my professors from my home university who teaches Cross-Cultural Management (a speciality I would later pick during my studies) and asked her what the heck I was missing. She sent me a variety of links to check out, among which some papers from the GLOBE study on dimensions, Hofstede’s model of cultural dimensions and others, opening my eyes to the specific cause for most of the problems I was facing as I adapted to Peruvian culture and enabling me to consciously learn and adjust. But imagine what would have happened if my friends and I had not had the time to explore this side of ourselves and our culture or if we wouldn’t have been as open to learning and understanding. We would have probably continued complaining about each other without ever understanding why we couldn’t seem to communicate with each other.

The answer lies in a combination of little trait researchers have dubbed ‘Assertiveness/ Context’ and ‘Confrontation’.

Cross-Cultural research revolves around dimensions (like these two) and compares where different cultures fall on the respective scale. Be aware, that where a country falls on the scale doesn’t actually tell us anything – it’s all about where your culture lies in comparison to another culture! Neither end of the scale is positive or negative – it’s simply different. The combination of the two scales mentioned define how we communicate with each other, they define what is considered acceptable or rude in a culture. Let’s look at each scale individually.CulturallyOurs Understanding the concept of assertiveness across cultures

Assertiveness defines how we state our needs

The technical definition states that assertiveness is the degree to which individuals are assertive, confrontational and aggressive in their relationships with others. What this means at its core is that highly assertive cultures (such as Austria and Germany) tend to communicate very directly and unambiguously, people from these cultures appreciate precise, simple and clear messages, whereas low-assertive cultures (such as Perú and most South American countries and cultures) tend towards communicating more indirectly and appreciate sophisticated, nuanced and layered messages.

Where for a Peruvian it might be totally clear that when someone tells you “Oh, your massages are so great!” that they want you to give them a massage, most Austrians would just take it at face value, thank you for the compliment and move on. This affects every type of relationship. In a romantic relationship for example, it manifests itself in the language we use when talking to our boo. Where Spanish (traditionally low assertive cultures) has dozens and dozens of petnames and ways of telling someone that you love them, in German we will stick to the traditional “I love you” and there are a total of two “official” petnames.

In Business relationships, this can lead to even more problems. Where the boss might be from a low-assertive country but his subordinates are from a highly assertive country, they might miss what he is telling them since they might not interpret his orders as what they are and move on without doing the task he just gave them. In countries that are high in context or low in assertiveness what is not said is often more important than what is said, messages are often implied and not directly stated.

How can you appropriately disagree

Cultures can be either confrontational or tend towards avoiding confrontation. Confrontational cultures (e.g. Austria/ Germany) value disagreement and debate as a form of coming up with new ideas whereas cultures that avoid confrontation tend towards viewing disagreement as disruptive and harmony-breaking.

Where I was raised to openly disagree and state my opinion and never take disagreement as a personal affront but as a chance to improve my idea and myself, this is highly frowned upon in other cultures, such as many South American cultures. Open confrontation is avoided at any costs and disagreement happens on a much more subtle level. The priority lies elsewhere – keeping the group harmony and valuing the relationship with the other person over any potential disagreement one might have over the subject matter.

As it happens, Peru and Austria are on pretty much opposite ends of both of these scales which explains, why I was having such a hard time fitting in in the beginning. However, with so many people working in global organizations and with people from all over the globe, it’s becoming increasingly important to learn to communicate despite such cultural differences and to be able to adapt to the person at the other end of the phone. Ever since I had these initial difficulties, I have learned to express this when starting to work with people from other cultures that i haven’t met beforehand. Understanding that the other is not trying to be rude or avoiding the point on purpose and talking about these differences can make a world of difference in professional and personal relationships.

Have you ever had difficulties communicating with someone from another culture? How did you solve the problem?

Thank you so much for sharing such interesting observations Viktoria. This certainly explains a lot of how the world communicates so differently – both in a corporate setting and in a social setting. It is important to understand these nuances and manage expectations – both for ourselves and others around us as the world is becoming more mobile and moving towards a remote gig economy.

Viktoria Desser is a born and raised Austrian and is a coach focused on Leadership training. She has since travelled all over Europe working with people from around the world and helping them to develop their skillset and find their voice as a leader.

{Words by Viktoria Undesser; Website: Lead Today Shape Tomorrow; Instagram: @lead_today.shape_tomorrow}

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  1. Amber C says:

    I am an American married to a Peruvian and could not possibly agree more with your narrative. You seem to have a adapted in a year much better than we have figured out how to in 12 years of marriage LOL. It’s incredibly frustrating to me and I’m assertive even by American standards 🙂 Thank you for this thoughtful and informative piece.