Get What You Want by Ignoring This Piece of Advice

When I was in my 20s and a few years out of college, I listened to a very prominent woman executive give a speech about leadership. In her presentation, she had a list of "do"s and "don't"s that women should follow. One "don't'" was to never say "I hope" or "sorry" in emails, as those were weak words. Instead, she said, women needed to state what they wanted in firm language, never apologizing for speaking up.

I took her advice to heart. Maybe a little too much. I stopped using the word "sorry" and crafted my emails to sound direct and authoritative. Anytime I wrote "I hope," I deleted the words right away.

I thought I was sounding strong and confident.

Instead, as you can imagine, I sounded tone-deaf and irritating. People bristled at my tone; I was alienating people. Not exactly the effect I was hoping for.

So began my lifelong focus on developing my EQ skills—because clearly, I didn't have any.

Fast-forward a few years, and I still hear women advising others to speak their minds and be assertive. I often hear this when women bosses talk about the difference between male and female employees. These bosses tell me that women, by and large, do not walk into offices asking for a raise, instead waiting until their yearly review to bring up the subject. By contrast, they say, men will ask for a raise anytime, anywhere—and will threaten to leave if they don't get it. The result, they conclude: men get paid more.

The follow-up advice after recounting these stories is to tell women to be more assertive at work and speak up.

Except I always felt this common piece of advice needed a caveat, a "but" that was often ignored:

Be assertive—but read the room too.

In other words, find the right moment and develop the right working relationship for your assertiveness.

This is why, at times, blanket "do's" and "don't"s backfire on women. In fact, we might be better off ignoring these "rules" and focusing instead on developing more emotional intelligence. The fact that there are unfortunate biases in the workplace against women only makes it more important to master top-notch EQ.

Furthermore, getting what you want has almost nothing to do with what rules you follow—and absolute everything to do with the value you present to your team. This is true whether you're asking for a raise, raising funds, or convincing a customer to purchase your product.

I stopped following rules long ago. These days, I craft my emails to highlight what I think will resonate most with the recipient—assertiveness (or lack-thereof) be damned.

And speaking of emotional intelligence—you need a lot of it to deliver critical feedback without offending someone. Watch this Radiate video to learn how emotionally-savvy CEOs critique people the right way.

This article was originally published on Inc.

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