Cameron HeroldFounder of the COO Alliance & Invest In Your Leaders Training

Why Leaders MUST Learn How To Say NO To Employees

26 Oct 2022 · 1 min

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Cameron Herold argues that effective leaders must learn to say "no" more often than "yes" to maximize ROI from limited inputs—people, time, and money. He recommends listening to employee ideas, then delivering a clear but respectful "no" or "not now" so staff feel heard while organizational priorities are preserved.

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Years ago, one of my mentors, Greg Clark, who is the founder of College Pro Painters, said that a leader has to rise to this occasion where they say no more often than they say yes. And here's what I mean with that. We're not trying to create this Kumbaya group hug environment where everything is a yes and we give participation ribbons to everybody and we say yes to all the great ideas. The reality is we only have three inputs. We have our people, time and money, and we need to get the highest ROI off of those three inputs. So often the good ideas that are either generated by the CEO themselves or by the management team or by the front level employees might be good ideas, but it might be a not now. So it is often about saying no and not saying it in a way that's hurtful to the employees, but making sure the employees understand, hey, I love that idea. I listen to the idea, but based on all the other ideas I have, it's either a no or a not now. And I think if you deliver the no in the right way, they understand. The key for the employees is to make sure that they understand that you're at least listening to the ideas that they come to with.