Communication is an essential tool in every aspect of life.  Whether it’s our personal lives or profession, it is important to ensure we are communicating with others in a clear and concise manner.  Communication can be verbal or non-verbal.  Communication influences the way we think, decisions, behavior and relationships.  Cialdini references various forms of communication such as liking, authority and scarcity (Cialdini, 2008).  Although it may be fair or right, people are judged every day by the way they look which contributes to the racial, sexual and cultural issues in our country.   People also have automatic responses or perceptions of people in authority because of their uniforms or attire.  People put more trust in someone that is well dressed and they automatically assume they are more knowledgeable because of their titles.  This concept amazed me.  I always knew it existed but I never knew the formal name for the phenomenon.     

            I chose to focus my scholarly paper on Assertive Communication and how it related to my capstone project.  As a mentor, we try to instill the importance of speaking up for themselves but it is also very important to coach them about how to professionally approach assertiveness.  There is a difference between assertiveness and aggression.  We want them to always maintain professionalism and learn to communicate in a manner that will produce positive results.  This was something very helpful to me.  So many times, I am accused of being abrasive or stern.  It is never my intention.  My heart in the right place and I am focused on the task at hand and I am not usually aware if I offend people.   This course has helped me understand the importance of communication and how it can affect my leadership and relationship with other leaders, those who are on my team and my customers.  This is an area I am actively working to improve.  My professor came off really rude in the beginning and I automatically was ready to drop the course.  In retrospect, he was really showing us how communication ties into perception.  I didn’t understand that at the time but I see now, that in itself was a valuable lesson.