Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t

Prior work in the area of leadership and assertiveness has implied that a linear effect exists between these two variables, i.e., more assertiveness results in less effectiveness. However recent research (Daniel R. Ames and Francis J. Flynn F. (2007). What Breaks a Leader: The Curvilinear Relation Between Assertiveness and Leadership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2007, Vol. 92, No. 2, 307–324) suggests that the relationship may be curvilinear, i.e., individuals who are markedly low or markedly high in assertiveness are seen equally as less effective leaders. The authors linked the curvilinear effects of assertiveness to underlying trade offs between social outcomes (a high level of assertiveness worsens relationships) and instrumental outcomes (a low level of assertiveness limits goal achievement). The results suggest that assertiveness might have been overlooked in research that has been focused on identifying what makes a leader rather than what breaks a leader.

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