Just Say No

I read an interesting article today that explained how someone could say no to your boss. You might think this is an odd thing to write about in a leadership blog but it serves two purposes. First it will help all of you leaders find the courage and ability to say no so you don’t have to keep taking on more and more duties or projects. It will also help you from a leadership perspective to be able to understand when one of your employees starts to use these techniques on you then you know what to expect. That doesn’t mean that you immediately thwart their efforts. Instead you will be better prepared to listen and offer suggestions.

“SayingNo to Your Boss” is the blog article by Ernie Humphrey. Today I am just introducing the article and giving all my readers a chance to read the article. It lists five approaches you can take toward saying no to your boss. I will then unpack those five items and put my own personal spin on how you can use it as a leader and how you use it as a follower. You will see it from both perspectives and in the end it should improve your leadership. The five approaches we will look at are:

1. Level set a request into your current set of priorities – Tuesday 6/26
2. Redefine a request on your terms – Wednesday 6/27
3. Directly state your opinion supported with facts as to the relevance of a request – Thursday 6/28
4. Let a task stew to see if it still remains relevant – Monday 7/2
5. Use humor at any point you feel stating your opinion will cause tension – Tuesday 7/3

I enjoyed the article and thought it gave great insight into how to handle saying no. You don’t just want to storm into your boss’s office and say “NO!” This gave some great approaches and creative ways to say no.