Saying No with Grace and Tact

Many leaders I work with, especially women, struggle with how to say no to requests for work. Their teams are already overtaxed, they’re just trying to stay afloat, and the request may feel out of scope or 'extracurricular.'

In coaching, we work on how to say no with grace and tact in a way that doesn't damage the relationship or leave leaders feeling, well, like a jerk. Including both mindset and communication skills, here are three steps for people leaders to take to practice saying no with grace and tact.

1 - Move away from yes/no thinking

Grace and tact requires moving away from binary, black/white, yes/no thinking. If you're toggling back and forth in your mind between saying yes and saying no to the request, you probably feel stuck. And you are stuck – in black-and-white thinking. The skill of integrative thinking helps you move into the gray zone where the black and the white get integrated into a solution that is superior to either original idea.

Let’s look at this with an example. Jamie leads a team that operates as an internal service provider. The other teams requesting her services don't really understand what goes into the results she and her team produce for them. The minute she receives a request, her anxiety goes up as she thinks, "How am I ever going to fit this in!?" Her defense mechanism is to feel frustrated at the person making the request. 

Jamie is stuck between two responses "yes, sure, we'll find a way to fit that in" and "no, sorry, we can't take that on." Her challenge is to expand her mind to all the other possible options, as we'll explore below.

2 - Actively explore options

Consider all the variables at your disposal here: scope, schedule, people resources, and perhaps budget. This is where you can get creative. If you want to say yes, but you just don't have the bandwidth, what could you say yes to now, or when, later, could you say yes to all? This mentality, to get creative and think outside the box, requires you to lower your defenses and not take the difficulty of the initial request personally.

In Jamie's case, the turnaround time that was being requested wouldn't work for the scope. But after her initial reaction cooled and she had some reflection time, she knew that she could say yes to an initial phase of the request in their timeline, and that the rest of the scope could likely afford to wait a few weeks when one of her team members finished another project. Now it was just a matter of communicating this in a way that the stakeholder understood and respected.

3 - Communicate your intent to help, with boundaries

Finally, the goal is to communicate your intent to help with the boundaries that you need. Doing this well does depend on your success in the first two steps. Have you successfully not taken the too-large request personally? If you're still feeling defensive, you may not be ready to have a conversation. Try to remind yourself that the requestor is just doing their job and doesn't have a window into all of your other work.

Communicating with your stakeholder is a balance. You have two main points:

• I want to figure out a way to support you.

• I have some limitations we need to work within.

You're balancing your desire to support them and your need to protect your team and yourself from burnout. This communication is your job as a people leader. Too many people leaders shy away from pushing back with the limits they need, and then to protect their teams, they take up the extra work themselves. That is not sustainable.

Jamie went back to the stakeholder making the request and said "I can get this first piece to you by next week, and I want to find a way to support you with your entire request over time. My limitation is that the right person for this project is tied to another project until the week after next. Help me understand where there might be some flexibility in your timeline."

In the above conversation, Jamie is balancing inquiry, where she learns about what the stakeholder needs, and advocacy, where she remains clear on what she and her team can handle. Her desire to help is clear, and she's sincere in trying to find the win-win outcome where both parties get what they need. 

Instead of retorting to unrealistic requests with a flat-out no, see where you might be able to say yes, but with conditions. This requires a shift away from black-and-white thinking, creativity in exploring options, and communicating that balance of wanting to help but having limits.