In this instructional video, Natalie Fisher teaches viewers how to frame disagreements with a manager in a way that protects their professional reputation and keeps the conversation constructive. She begins by emphasizing that disagreement fuels growth, but mishandling it can damage a career, illustrated through a story about a high‑level marketing director who repeatedly got let go because her confrontational style made her appear arrogant. Fisher then outlines two practical dialogue scripts: (1) when you disagree with the strategic direction of a project, you acknowledge the current plan, present a better alternative, and ask if the boss is open to another perspective; (2) when you lack the bandwidth for a new assignment, you request a joint review of your task list, highlight existing commitments, and suggest pausing other work or finding help. She explains why each approach works—showing investment, offering solutions, and making the impact of shifting focus visible. The video also highlights common mistakes that can cost a job, such as bluntly rejecting ideas or appearing inflexible. Finally, Fisher promotes additional videos, a free guide with fill‑in‑the‑blank answer templates, and encourages viewers to download it.
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In this video, I'll explain to you how to describe a disagreement that you had with your boss so that you can look good. I'll break down 2 examples to answer this question and the biggest mistakes that cost people the job when they are talking about disagreeing with a boss. So stay tuned. First things first, the growth of knowledge depends entirely upon disagreement. So disagreements are healthy and necessary in the workplace. It's how they are handled that actually make or break your career. So I want to share a quick story. I used to work with a very high-level executive. She was a marketing director. She was absolutely great at what she did. However, if anyone disagreed with her, she would flip out at them. She would flip out at her boss, who was the CEO, and She would make whoever disagreed with her feel really bad about it because she decided that her way was the only clear way to do something. I watched her go from several different companies and she couldn't understand why she kept being let go. The thing she wasn't seeing was that even if her idea was the best idea, the way that she disagreed with her boss was making her seem arrogant, close-minded, and not open to anything else. So there are some ways, some easier ways to show your boss that your idea is worth a shot while not making your boss angry. If you've been asked to take on a project that you don't agree with, whether it's objective or scope, you want to reframe it to something like this. So if your boss says, I need you to take on this project, and you don't agree with the the best approach for it, you say something like this: I don't think we should move ahead with this strategy, but I do have another idea that might work way better to help our customers. And then you want to explain the desired idea and result in a bit more detail. And then you say, are you open to another perspective? So this works because instead of simply disagreeing, you propose an alternative. This proves that you're invested in the outcome and you're committing To helping the team to get to that outcome. Second example: So say your boss wants you to take on something that you just don't have the time for. So you disagree on your ability to do this project in the time that they've given. And so, if you generally don't have the time or the bandwidth to take on another thing, this is how you can approach it. I hear how important this is. Can we take a look at my current task list together? Because there's a lot in motion right now, and I want everything to get. Get done. I don't want anything to fall through the cracks, so I'll either need to hit the pause button on these other projects, or we'll need to find someone to help with this one. So this works because the question, can we take a look at my tasks together, shows that you are on top of things. It also reminds your boss that there are consequences to shifting your focus. So they can't just keep piling things on you and expect you to just get it all done. They do need to sacrifice some things. So there you have it, how to respond when you disagree with your boss. So if you'd like to watch more videos in this series, click here. If you'd like to learn more about these types of questions, or you'd like to watch another video from me right now, Click here, and I also have a free guide. It's chock full of example answers, fill in the blanks, as well as questions you can ask yourself to come up with your own stories, just like we did in this video. So click below to grab that for free, and I'll see you over in the next video. Bye! There's someone outside, and they might be looking at me a bit weird. Okay.
