Janet Carlisle had probably received more staff requests for assertiveness training than for any other single area of personal development.

As the training manager of a large London arts organisation and with 20 years of experience under her belt, she never imagined that she might need to follow suit. Then one day this year, during an internal meeting, she was horrified to find herself meekly conceding to another department that had decided to ignore her advice on a large training programme.

Carlisle – not her real name – said: “They took the decision out of my hands. Another department was using my budget without my agreement and they were not even taking my advice.”

It was the last straw. Over the previous two years, Carlisle had become increasingly passive at work until anyone who disagreed with her recommendations for personal development simply went over her head.

“I knew all the assertiveness techniques and had read all the books, but somehow I had become frightened of standing up for myself,” she said.

The situation had got out of hand and had begun affecting her work and home life. “I felt trapped but after that meeting I decided I didn’t want to feel that I was just rolling over. I didn’t want any more sleepless nights worrying,” she said.

Carlisle knew that workplace behaviour had become more confrontational and that assertiveness was a real problem for many managers. She had, though, somehow begun to collude in the way others treated her. So she enrolled herself on a one-day management assertiveness training course. It had an enormous impact.

Part of the course, with Hemsley Fraser, concerned transactional analysis that sought to reveal the effect that people had on one another. “Suddenly it made so much sense,” said Carlisle.

She has since sought to break her own patterns of behaviour. “I now feel much calmer and it has made a huge difference to my authority at work,” she said. “And my manager is happier with me as well.”

Assertiveness is a significant issue in the workplace. There are those at one end of the behaviour spectrum who, like Carlisle, get walked all over in their efforts to gain the approval of others. They apologise too much, fail to make eye contact, cannot say no to their boss and will do anything to avoid upsetting other people.

This usually means they take on too much work and often risk getting a reputation for unreliability because they simply cannot finish every task properly. In any case, submissive individuals are rarely respected, wield little authority and lack self-esteem.

At the other end of the spectrum are the workplace bullies, aggressive individuals who show little interest in other people’s ideas and little concern for their needs. They blame those around them for the problems they encounter and tend not to be trusted by their colleagues.

They also fail to realise that those people they knock to the ground often harbour grudges and will take every opportunity to get their own back.

Kamal Birdi, lecturer in occupational psychology at the Institute of Work Psychology at Sheffield University, said that the careers of people who leant towards either extreme might be held back by their behaviour.

“Being assertive is the middle way,” he said. “It is about being in control, resisting attempts to be manipulated, coping with criticism and calmly discussing issues without attacking.”

Birdi said studies indicated that assertiveness training could make a difference, although altering behaviour was always challenging.

“With assertiveness, you are looking to change people’s fundamental ways of interacting with others, which is more difficult than teaching them how to use the latest version of Word, for example,” he said. “But it can be effective if you use the right techniques and the right principles to help people transfer their learning back to the workplace.”

For Andy Hainsworth, a course on assertiveness run by Reed Learning 10 months ago has helped the engineer, based in Southall, west London, move into management.

Hainsworth, who is now a senior manager at the food company Le Pain Croustillant, had got as far as he could in a hands-on engineering role. To make the transition, he had to undertake training. In particular, his boss suggested that he needed to alter his relationship with his colleagues, “I had got into the wrong relationship with the people I managed,” he said. “If you come across as too friendly, people can get the impression that they can sometimes put work to one side. But if you are assertive, you can get the job done much quicker.”

The course gave Hainsworth the techniques he needed to change his relationship with his staff. “I have more respect now and it has improved the way my team works,” he said.

It has also raised his standing with his boss and he hopes to take on more responsibility soon.

Zak Khan, an associate trainer for Reed Learning, said that passivity and aggression were traits that could emerge as individuals gained promotion and were faced with more pressure.

He said: “They tend not to admit to people at work that they are finding it hard to cope as they don’t want to seem weak.”

The two-day workshops he runs in assertiveness try to encourage people to be more self-aware and understand what behaviour might be more appropriate in their role.

“Assertiveness is a balance between behaviours where you understand that you have the right to be respected and to express opinions that are different from other people’s while understanding that other people have those rights as well,” said Khan.

“This can make a huge difference to a career. If you don’t earn respect from other people, you don’t do so well.”

Joanna Roberts felt she was stuck in a rut before she enrolled in a course run by Reed Learning.

The 29-year-old manager of the Ethiopi-aid charity was not a passive individual – she was confident in her work but did not feel confident enough to make the change she needed.

“I needed to get that extra percentage of motivation to make the leap,” said Roberts. She had taken a postgraduate diploma in journalism before joining the charity but had held back from pursuing it.

Once she had completed the “delivering beyond yourself” course, she felt ready to try. The course was essentially about confidence and influencing others.

“You don’t have to be confident to make other people think you are confident,” said Roberts.

Last month she made the break, moved to Dublin and has begun her dream career as a freelance journalist.

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