I think aggressive behaviour is much easier to recognise when somebody else is doing it.
The interruption. The sharp tone. The person who keeps talking until everyone else gives up. The challenge that has somehow stopped being about the issue and started feeling personal.
It gets a little more uncomfortable when the person who has drifted is us.
Most of us probably do not arrive at work planning to be aggressive. We may be trying to get something done, defend a position, challenge a poor decision, meet a deadline or make ourselves heard.
Then the pressure goes up. We push a little harder. Talk a little faster. Listen a little less.
And something that began as useful Assertiveness starts landing very differently with the people around us.
That is the bit I am interested in. Not whether somebody is an “assertive person” or an “aggressive person”, but whether the behaviour being used still fits the situation.
Assertiveness and Aggression Are Not the Same Thing
Assertiveness matters at work. We need people who can say what they think, challenge an assumption, establish a boundary, make a decision or tell somebody something they may not particularly want to hear.
The answer is not to make everyone quieter. Research into leadership Assertiveness has found that both very low and very high levels can create problems. Too little can make it harder to achieve an outcome. Too much can damage relationships. Somewhere in between sits the level of behaviour that works for the situation (Ames & Flynn, 2007).
That makes sense to me. The problem with aggression is not simply that somebody is being strong or direct.
The line starts to shift when getting the outcome becomes more important than how we are treating the other person.
- We stop challenging the idea and start challenging the person.
- We stop creating space for a response.
- We interrupt, intimidate, dismiss, ridicule, threaten or simply overwhelm.
Sometimes it is obvious. Sometimes it is much quieter than that.
When Your Own Behaviour Starts to Drift
This is probably the harder side of the conversation. Most of us know our intent.
We know we are trying to help. We know the deadline matters. We know we are frustrated because we have already explained something three times. We know somebody needs to make a decision.
The other person does not experience our intent. They experience our behaviour.
At flowprofiler®, Assertiveness is one of the six resilienceflow® dimensions. It includes the
capacity to state a position strongly, make decisions, take control where required and influence others.
All useful capabilities. But more is not automatically better.
A strength can become disproportionately expressed. Pressure can also change how behaviour shows up. Someone who is appropriately direct day to day may become much more forceful when the stakes rise.
That does not make them a bad person. It does mean there is something useful to notice.
1. Notice the physical clues
Behaviour often starts moving before we consciously decide to change it.
- Maybe you are talking faster.
- Your volume has gone up.
- You are leaning forward.
- Interrupting.
- Repeating the same point.
- Thinking less about what the other person is saying and more about what you are going to say next.
Those little clues matter. They are an opportunity to catch the behaviour while you still have choices.
2. Ask yourself what you are actually trying to achieve
Winning the argument and achieving the outcome are not always the same thing.
If the purpose of the conversation is to solve a problem, get useful information, reach a decision or preserve a working relationship, ask whether the way you are behaving is helping.
You may still need to be very firm. You may still disagree completely. You may still need to say no. The goal is not to become less clear. It is to stay useful.
3. Reduce the intensity, not necessarily the conviction
This is one I think we sometimes get wrong. Dialling behaviour back does not mean abandoning the point.
- You can lower your voice without weakening your argument.
- You can stop interrupting without agreeing.
- You can ask a question without surrendering authority.
- You can say:
“I feel quite strongly about this, but I want to make sure I am hearing you.”
Or:
“I don’t agree with that conclusion. Talk me through how you got there.”
There is still plenty of Assertiveness in both.
4. Make some room
When we feel pressure, many of us reach harder for the behaviour that has worked for us before.
If being decisive has helped, we become more decisive. If challenging people has worked, we challenge harder. If taking control has worked, we take more control.
Sometimes the behaviour that made us successful is exactly the behaviour getting in our way.
A pause, a question or simply letting somebody finish can be enough to put some range back into the conversation.
When It Is Somebody Else’s Behaviour
The other side of this is what happens when somebody else becomes aggressive. This can be harder because we do not control their behaviour.
We only control what we do next. And there is a very human temptation to match them. They get louder, so we get louder. They become abrupt, so we become abrupt. They interrupt, so we fight for the floor.
Very quickly, two people who both think they are being reasonable are having a completely different conversation.
1. Do not borrow their behaviour
You do not have to match somebody’s energy to hold your ground. In fact, staying measured often gives you more control over your own contribution.
Listen long enough to understand what the actual issue is. Keep your sentences shorter. Slow the pace down.
Do not introduce five new arguments because the other person introduced five.
Research on moving from aggressive to assertive communication similarly emphasises recognising triggers, measured tone, active listening, asking questions and remaining engaged rather than escalating the exchange (Maloney & Moore, 2020).
2. Name what is happening without diagnosing the person
There is a difference between:
“You are aggressive.” and: “I am happy to keep talking about this, but I am not comfortable being spoken to like that.”
One labels the person. The other identifies the behaviour and sets a boundary.
Other useful versions might be:
- “We are both getting pretty forceful here. Can we bring this back to the decision we need to make?”
- “I want to hear your concern, but I need you to let me finish.”
- “We can disagree. We don’t need to make this personal.”
None of those requires you to be passive. Quite the opposite.
3. Bring the conversation back to something concrete
Aggressive conversations can become very broad very quickly.
- “You always…”
- “You never…”
- “Everyone thinks…”
- “Nothing ever changes…”
Try bringing it back to the thing that can actually be discussed.
- What happened?
- What needs to happen next?
- What decision are we making?
- What evidence do we have?
- What boundary needs to be clear?
Moving from the person back to the issue can take some heat out of the interaction.
4. Know when to stop
Not every conversation needs to be rescued in the moment.
Sometimes the most useful thing you can say is: “I don’t think we are going to solve this well while the conversation is going like this. Let’s come back to it.”
That is not weakness. It is a choice.
And importantly, there is a point where this stops being a behavioural-development conversation altogether.
Workplace aggression can include verbal abuse, threats, yelling and physical intimidation. Where behaviour becomes threatening, abusive, repeated or unsafe, the answer is not simply to become better at handling difficult people.
Organisations have responsibilities to manage psychosocial hazards and risks associated with workplace violence and aggression.
Development should never become an excuse for asking somebody to tolerate unsafe behaviour.
Behavioural Range Works Both Ways
We often talk about behavioural range as the ability to activate more of something.
- Speak up.
- Be more confident.
- Challenge.
- Take control.
But range works in both directions. Sometimes the capability is knowing when to use more Assertiveness.
Sometimes it is recognising that you are already using plenty. And sometimes it is being able to stay appropriately assertive while somebody else is pushing hard against you.
That is a much more useful idea than trying to identify one perfect communication style.
At flowprofiler®, we describe behavioural intelligence as the capacity to understand, regulate and adapt behaviour in response to people, pressure and context.
For me, this is a good example of what that means in real life. Notice what is happening.
Notice what the situation needs. Then decide whether the behaviour needs to go up, come down or change altogether.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Yourself
After a difficult interaction, I think these questions are more useful than simply deciding who was right:
- What was I trying to achieve?
- What did my behaviour actually communicate?
- Did I stay focused on the issue or start focusing on the person?
- What happened when the pressure increased?
- Did I create enough space for the other person to respond?
- What would I keep the same next time?
- What would I dial up, dial back or do differently?
We will not get every conversation right. Neither will the people around us.
But noticing the drift gives us a much better chance of doing something useful about it.
Strengthen Behavioural Range at Work
flowprofiler® helps leaders and teams understand how behavioural capabilities are being used, including what changes when pressure rises and where a useful strength may be underused or relied on too heavily.
The point is not to create one ideal leadership style.
It is to give people greater awareness, greater range and more choice over what they do next.
References
Ames, D. R., & Flynn, F. J. (2007). What breaks a leader: The curvilinear relation between assertiveness and leadership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(2), 307–324. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.2.307
flowprofiler® Pty Ltd. (2026). flowprofiler® technical manual (Version 6).
Maloney, M. E., & Moore, P. (2020). From aggressive to assertive. International Journal of Women’s Dermatology, 6(1), 46–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijwd.2019.09.006
Safe Work Australia. (n.d.). Workplace violence and aggression: Managing risks. Safe Work Australia.
