4. The Art of Saying No: Strategically Set Boundaries and Communicate Powerfully
Every time you say yes to something you don’t want to do, what are you saying no to? Do you struggle with saying no and setting boundaries at work without feeling guilty? You're not alone. Many female leaders face immense pressure to please others and take on extra tasks, even at the expense of their own well-being and effectiveness.
However, saying no strategically can actually help you say yes to more high-impact work, mental well-being, and becoming the authentic leader you aspire to be. Get ready to transform your mindset around saying no and unlock your full leadership potential.
Tune in this week as I discuss the common reasons why women struggle with saying no and setting boundaries, including fear of disappointment, perfectionism, and societal pressures. You’ll learn my triple-P framework for setting boundaries and communicating confidently, and I even share my personal journey of learning to say no powerfully and assertively.
If you haven’t already, please follow the podcast and leave a rating and review to let me know what you think. I'm creating this show just for you, so I want to know what you would like to hear about in the coming episodes. Find complete instructions here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why women often feel compelled to say yes to extra work and how it can limit their advancement.
The common fears and limiting beliefs that make it difficult for women to say no confidently.
How to use my triple-P strategy (pause, purpose, and powerful communication) to set boundaries effectively.
Real-life examples of how to navigate tricky situations at work when you need to say no.
Why saying no strategically can help you say yes to more high-impact, fulfilling work and life experiences.
How to communicate your boundaries and decisions powerfully to build trust and rapport with others.
Practical tips for noticing your emotions, aligning with your purpose, and embracing discomfort as you grow.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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If you haven’t already, please follow the podcast and leave a rating and review to let me know what you think. Find complete instructions here!
Full Episode Transcript:
Feeling like you’re juggling too much bit still afraid to say no? In this episode, we’ll teach you the art of saying no, without the guilt or fear of burning bridges. If you’re a high-achieving woman who’s done with people pleasing and ready to set powerful boundaries, this is your gamechanger. Learn how to confidently say no and create the space you need to thrive because saying yes to everything is holding you back from the leader you could be.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Welcome everyone, today's episode is on the art of saying no, setting boundaries without guilt. This is a topic that I feel very, very strongly about. Before learning how to say no in a powerful, assertive way that helped me build trust and rapport with people, I was spending so much time working late at night all by myself, prioritizing work activities over my personal life.
I remember it was my birthday in New York City, I think I was in my early twenties, and I didn't even want to have birthday plans because it was budget season and I was like, I need to be available for work. I've come a long way and this episode I'm going to share with you things that I coach my female leaders on that will help you to say no and to learn how to set boundaries without feeling guilty.
Today, the thing that I'm going to talk to you about is a healthy framework that you can be using in your life all the time, whether it's personal or professional, to create more space for yourself, to align more deeply with the type of leader you wanna be, and to get clearer and clearer on why you say no to things and why you say yes. It's really about learning how to trust yourself.
So let's dive into an example. I want you to picture this. You just did a major presentation for your leadership team. And the next day you are in the office and you realize that you've really got to go and have a bio break because you were working all morning and you didn't get a chance to. So you start rushing to the bathroom. All of a sudden, your CEO comes in front of you and says, hey, listen, you did an amazing job on that presentation yesterday. I want you to come with me and I want to update a couple of slides with you because I want to share it with our board members. I think it's essential for us to get these investments that we need. Let's go.
What do you do? Right? On one hand, you are excited. You feel energized. You notice the CEO seeing you. You want to be seen in this way. And you want to say yes because you want to say, let's go. Let's flow with it. Let's get this thing done. But you're also concerned because you really need to go to the bathroom.
And you can maybe not be as focused when you're actually updating things with him because you're really focused on needing to go to the bathroom, which is just a need that you have. It might sound like a funny example, but this happens a lot, right? Where we are stuck in a situation where we don't want to displease people, we wanna go with the flow, we wanna prove ourselves, but at the same time, we are ignoring and denying a need that we have.
So you can say, yes, let's go, or you can say no and risk feeling inadequate, risk feeling like you kind of broke that energy flow and you're starting to act like not as confident, right? So in that moment, you have a choice to say, yes, let's go, or you also have a choice to show up confidently and say, "Yes, I would love to help you with that, and I'm so glad that what I presented yesterday made such an impact for you. I need to go to the bathroom really quick and grab my computer, but I'll be in your office in less than five minutes."
So you can say it in a super confident manner, right? But oftentimes what happens is we don't stop ourselves, we don't pause, we don't give ourselves permission to check in with ourselves, and we reactively say yes, particularly with authority figures. So you want to notice if this happens more with authority figures, but it could happen with your peers as well. We want to please and get the thing done, but in the process we oftentimes miss out on taking care of ourselves.
And I want to highlight that again this is not just a problem with you, this is a problem with a lot of female leaders. There's actually an article by the Harvard Business Review that did research and the article's called Why Women Say Yes When They Want to Say No. The research explores the pressures many women feel to avoid saying no, which can impact their mental health, lead to increased stress, and diminish their effectiveness at work. The article also discussed how women may feel compelled to agree to extra work out of fear of being seen as less committed.
And this is particularly a big one because women are oftentimes competing with men, and they don't want to say, I have to leave early to pick up my kids, or they don't want to say certain things that might appear that they have something that they're focused on that's not just work-related. But what happens here is that you, again, are not showing up authentically and you're denying pieces of yourself. But the real tragedy here is that women that take on too many of these tasks, they actually burn out and they also limit opportunities for advancement because they're not focused on high impact career advancing work. By saying yes to things, you're actually saying no to other things.
And in today's podcast, I really wanna highlight that piece because that is the piece that is really detrimental to women and really contributes to women leaving the workforce or feeling really dissatisfied or totally burnt out. So let's dive into common reasons why we struggle to say no.
First of all, it's the fear of disappointment or damaging the relationship, right? Oftentimes we're thinking about this in an all-or-nothing way. We either have to do something or say something to show up in a certain way or else something bad's going to happen. Maybe your thought is, I am not as committed or I am not good enough or this person's going to think lowly of me.
There might also be perfectionism at play, this desire to please, right, which is very culturally for women – we want to make people feel safe and secure, and it is a natural part of feminine leadership to notice other people's feelings and to make them feel comfortable. Culturally, there's societal pressures for us to do that too. You know, hosting people in your house, having that welcome, warm feeling. Putting other people's needs ahead of your own.
That might also be something that you have learned culturally in your family. I oftentimes ask the women that I coach what their mom did, right? And oftentimes they say, well, my mom never put herself first. It was always the family, always other people, taking care of other people, right? So you want to have compassion for yourself because we have a lot of programming in our society, in our culture, in our family that says women should make things more comfortable for other people. And that saying no is not okay.
That saying no means that you are a bad sister, you're a bad worker. There might be thoughts that are deeper, that are limiting, that cause you to feel this guilt. This is really what is caused by when you say no and you feel guilty, it's these patterns and thoughts. And so oftentimes I'm asking my clients to dig a little deeper and see what's coming up for them around that. What does it mean? And does that actually help them progress to who they want to be or is it keeping them stuck?
I'm going to share with you my triple P strategy which will really help you to slow down, to pause, and to strategically think about what saying no could really be for you. I want you to think about this framework as a way to really embrace saying no and enjoying it because you're saying yes to other things.
You could be saying yes to more strategic, high-impact work that could help you excel and help you to make a bigger impact in your organization and the people that you lead. You could be saying yes to more mental and emotional well-being because you're not constantly rushing from place to place. You could be saying yes to even more high-quality work because you actually have the time and energy to focus on it. And when you're connecting with your team members, you have the time to give them that context and clarity.
So I want you to start thinking about what saying no actually means. Because our minds will go quickly to the limiting belief that we're somehow bad or that we're somehow going to disappoint other people. And what happens in this is we're actually not in tune with ourselves. We're not connected with ourselves.
So let me share an example of this that actually happened to me and I will talk you through this strategy that has really helped me slow down, notice myself, and ask myself some really critical questions so that I can get more clear on what I want to do.
So this is the scenario. I had a big trip planned with my boyfriend and again, personally, I was excited about it. It was the beginning of the year and about a week before this big trip, my CEO got all of our leadership together and said, listen, we are going to enter a process to buy a company. The people on this call are critical to that mission. And I expect all hands on deck for this. This is our chance to acquire a big piece of our portfolio that's missing that could really change the way our whole company grows and expands, and I need all of you there. I remember getting off of that call and just feeling a lot of pressure, right?
So the first P is really permission to notice and name your emotions and your needs, right? So my emotion in that moment was a lot of fear because I had just planned this big trip and I was looking forward to it. And now some new information was happening, right? There was a big transaction happening. I needed to be part of there for the due diligence. I was the finance leader.
And so of course the big P there was pausing, giving myself permission to notice and name my emotions. And then the second part of the framework is purpose. And this is really where you can start diving into strategic discernment about your decision-making.
So this is where you slow down and notice. So on one hand, I'm like, I could just say, I wanna go ahead with this vacation because I'm ready to do so. I planned it out and I will set my team up well to do this, right? At the same time, I knew that my peers were all on board and I knew others of them had vacations and they were shifting things around, so I also saw what they were doing.
And then thirdly, for me, it was a pivotal time in my career. I had not done an M&A transaction before, and it was a big piece of my personal resume that I wanted experience in and I wanted to be part of that. So for me, that purpose piece really helped me strategically decide that yes, I wanted to stay here for this, but the other part for me was also that I wanted to connect with my boyfriend and that might need to look differently.
So the powerful communication piece is the third piece of this. This is really where you can align and get clear with yourself of how you want to proceed. For me, it was to say, you know, telling my boss, hey, I've decided to cancel my vacation, but I am planning a weekend trip on these dates, and I am going to commit to that, you know. My trip, I told my boyfriend, you've got to go by yourself, I'm making this choice, right?
So even owning that choice, owning that no, saying no to that, helped me feel more empowered. Not like work was making me do something, but it was actively my choice in it. I also shared with my boss that I am gonna be canceling this but I will be going on vacation for a weekend and that meant taking a Friday off and coming back on the Monday so it wasn't gonna be as long of a vacation. But it was still going to meet some of my needs and not be just saying no to everything.
The art of saying no and setting boundaries without guilt is really embracing the thought that it's not all or nothing, right? When our brains go to it's all or nothing, we're very quick to say yes because we don't want to feel all of those feelings or those questions that come up for ourselves. And oftentimes what we leave on the table is better understanding of ourselves, more empowerment for ourselves.
And so what I ended up doing was I told my boss, listen, I am willing to cancel my two-week vacation. I know this is super important and I want to be here for it. This is a big part of my own career development and I wanna be all hands on deck for it. However, I will be taking a Friday to a Monday off, so having a long weekend where I will go on that vacation, but I'll make sure that my team has everything we need and if there are super important meetings, then I am willing to do those.
So by using this method, I was able to number one, give myself permission to notice my own feelings and oftentimes it is not about me being number one, putting all of my feelings and needs first. It's about recognizing even what those feelings are so that you can understand and make purposeful choices, which is the second piece of the framework.
And then thirdly, it's communicating powerfully. Communicating in a way that allows people to understand you, to trust you, understand where you're coming from. And these, even in the act of saying yes or no to someone, it is your ability to make yourself seen and heard and create an impact in that relationship. The way you handle these communications, especially with senior leaders, could really amplify your leadership because they can see you as emotionally mature. They can see you as somebody who's taking care of themselves.
They'll see you as somebody that is not building up a lot of resentment and worried that they're going to burn out. So that was one example. So I just wanted to share that with you because you can use this Triple P method to really give yourself, again, permission to feel what you need to feel and name them, purpose, making a choice from purpose, and thirdly, communicating powerfully.
So I want to share one more example with you. In this case, it was one of my clients. So she was having a big dilemma. There was a big launch happening in her company. She had been working on this project for a long time, and all the work had been done, actually. It was actually an exciting time. And she didn't know that she was going to be tapped to be one of the people that was asked to come to this ribbon opening. She actually thought she was more behind the scenes.
So when she was asked to come do this, she felt really excited about it. She really wanted to say yes, but she realized her best friend was coming from out of town for two weeks, and her best friend lives internationally in a very far, far away place. So she had plans, you know?
And so again, her permission for her to notice her feelings, both this desire and excitement to say yes and be there for this opening. And then also this desire to protect this time and space with her best friend, which comes along every five years or so. And so when she really sunk down into it and was thinking about a purposeful choice, what she actually came to was realizing that her time with her friend was more important than this coming to the launch.
So she decided to communicate that powerfully to both the organization and let them know, hey, thank you so much for tapping me for this launch event. I feel really honored to have been asked. However, I have prior commitments and I can't make it, but I will send somebody on my team if that works for you guys. So again, that's powerful communication but you can't get there unless you slow down and give yourself time to notice what your emotions are, what your purpose is, and how you wanna communicate this, right?
Oftentimes people are in such a rush and things are miscommunicated, and if you just say no really quickly, then that guilt comes in because you are not helping yourself be seen and heard by other people and your mind is just giving you limiting thoughts about the way that you're showing up. You're not a team player. All of that internal cha-cha that's really killing your confidence because it's basically saying you're not good enough or you're not working hard enough. And we know that that's not the case, right?
Protecting our time and mental and emotional energy, making sure that we are mitigating burnout and resentment is really part of us showing up as effective, authentic leaders in our lives, and we're modeling that for other people. So I want you to think about that the next time somebody asks you to do something.
You know, for me as a finance leader, I felt very strongly about protecting my team's time. As a finance leader, we had so many initiatives and you could probably relate to this, right? System changes that come from the corporate level, lots of demands coming from the business and prioritization and discernment about what is most important and why is such an important part of showing up as a leader and protecting not only your energy but the energy of your team and making sure that they're not overworked and that they're not, you know, picking up all of the pieces.
I want you to really think about this in that broader sense that when we say no to something, we are saying yes to higher quality work. We are saying yes to our team members not getting burnt out. We are saying yes to important, high priority work that is coming from the leadership team.
And whenever I would say no to parts of the company or my peers that would ask for things, I would always give them context. And this really helped me not feel guilty. I was unconflicted because I said, listen, I get that you want to do this project. We don't have the time or resources on my team to analyze all of this data. But what I can do is give you the raw data. You can take a look at it and we can try to find time to do this later on in the year. But right now it is investment reviews season and we are focused on that. We have deadlines and we have board presentations and that's why this work can't be prioritized.
So it's also about that relationship, right? But it starts with that relationship with you. If you can help yourself by sitting with your own thoughts and feelings, aligning to your purpose, then you'll be better able to communicate powerfully. But it starts with first coming terms with yourself and having that conversation with yourself.
The more you're able to have that conversation with yourself and feel strongly about why you're saying no and to be able to give context, the better you're going to be able to assert yourself powerfully, not give a lot of justification, right? Because most of the time when people are giving you a big story or lots of justification, it's because they feel bad and they feel guilty.
And so they're almost trying to manage your emotions or talk to you in a certain way to not feel a certain thing. But really, they're just coming off as kind of like overdoing it, overworking the conversation versus say, hey listen, I get you need this, I can't do it, this is why. Right? It's actually pretty simple, but again you have to do that work to align with yourself before you dive in.
Alright, let me give you a real-time leadership challenge. This came from one of my clients recently. Her boss called her on a Friday and said, listen, are you able to go to this hospital site in the morning between 7am and 9am every day next week? And my client, she is such a great team player. She always wants to be there for her team, but she also wants to be there for her family. And 7am to 9am for her was the time when she would take her child to school and her husband would need to do a lot of different things to his schedule to make it work, right?
So on one hand she was like I want to say yes, but on another hand, I also noticed in my body that this is really causing me to change some of my routines, some of my boundaries that are in place. And when she went to purpose, right, she really thought, I want to be a team player. But here's the thing. Her boss didn't give her any context as to why she needed to cover for this other person. In this purpose part is where you can ask more clarifying questions.
So she actually asked her boss, hey, listen, I am open to doing it maybe for a couple of days next week. It's really difficult for me and my husband's schedule, but I really want to understand why is the person that's supposed to do this work, why is he not able to do it?
And her boss actually never came back to her. He said, actually, that's a great question. Let me ask. He never asked, right? And so in her mind, she was worried that she might not be a good team player, but in fact, she doesn't actually know if she's doing this as a favor, just helping someone out, or is there some urgent reason, or maybe another team member just doesn't feel like it? In that case, it's probably okay to just say no because that's also not teammate behavior.
So you want to slow down and answer those. What actually happened for her is she was able to ask powerful questions, communicate powerfully, and get really specific for herself about when she would say no and why and when she would say yes, right? So in this case, her boss actually came back and said, don't worry, we have somebody else doing this work, and you don't need to worry about it. So just by her asking the question helped her to, instead of automatically just saying yes and wanting to be a team player, it gave her more strategic discernment by asking the questions and waiting to see versus jumping into it.
Alright, so now that you've learned the three-P strategy, I want you to go out and practice it this week. First, identify one area in your life where you need to set boundaries and take stock of what that is. Oftentimes, we don't pause enough to think about this, but think about what comes up for you when you're like, I wish I could say no and not feel guilty in this area.
It could be a team member that is always asking you to do something that is really their job, or it could be that you are staying super late to do a job that is important but not super urgent and you could be pushing back more on those types of requests.
So pick that area and what I want you to do is number one pause and give yourself permission to notice and name your emotions. How are you feeling? What are your needs? I always like to tell my clients that the body never lies and the more we can get in touch with our emotions, the more we can trust ourselves and our choices. So notice that for yourself.
And then secondly, purposefully choose what you wanna do. Think about the trade-off of saying yes or no. What are you actually saying yes to? And what are you actually saying no to? And what is more in line with the authentic leader that you are moving towards becoming?
And then lastly, communicate powerfully. Share your thoughts, build rapport, give people context, let them into your world so they understand you. The more you do this, the more you can actually learn to say no in a way that is not threatening to you or the other person and actually helps bring people closer and helps people understand and know you better.
And it takes practice. So I also want to encourage you if it is messy and it feels messy, then you're in the right place to be learning these skills, right? If it was easy, you would have already done it. It is meant to be uncomfortable when we stretch and grow, but when you really think about what you're saying no to, I want you to also really focus on what are you saying yes to?
Is it more high-quality work, more impactful work, more high value work that could help you and your team members and your company grow in different ways? Is it saying yes to more quality time with your family and your friends? Is it saying yes to more you having satisfaction and fulfillment in your life? Is it saying yes to more energy and less rushing around in your life? Are you saying yes to becoming the person that you have always wanted to be? The person that can say that's a hard no for me and feel really grounded and unconflicted about it?
This is the prize of learning and practicing these skills. The more you practice these skills, the quicker you're going to be able to say no, and the more likely you will feel unconflicted and not guilty about your no. You will start embracing your no as a wonderful gift for you in terms of protecting your time and energy, but also a way to create rapport and trust with other people.
All right, go out and practice it, try it on, let me know what you think. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and DM me directly. I'd love to hear from you. And I want to hear how these strategies are impacting you and changing the way you lead.
Okay, so that is our episode for this week. Next week's episode is a really juicy one and I want to invite you into this. The episode title is about your frustration with white male leaders. Is it holding you back? Have a think about that. It is often something that is conscious to some leaders and unconscious to others, but this is one that I see over and over with a lot of the women that I coach and I want to dive into this topic.
All right, see you next week. Bye.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Welcome everyone, today's episode is on the art of saying no, setting boundaries without guilt. This is a topic that I feel very, very strongly about. Before learning how to say no in a powerful, assertive way that helped me build trust and rapport with people, I was spending so much time working late at night all by myself, prioritizing work activities over my personal life.
I remember it was my birthday in New York City, I think I was in my early twenties, and I didn't even want to have birthday plans because it was budget season and I was like, I need to be available for work. I've come a long way and this episode I'm going to share with you things that I coach my female leaders on that will help you to say no and to learn how to set boundaries without feeling guilty.
Today, the thing that I'm going to talk to you about is a healthy framework that you can be using in your life all the time, whether it's personal or professional, to create more space for yourself, to align more deeply with the type of leader you wanna be, and to get clearer and clearer on why you say no to things and why you say yes. It's really about learning how to trust yourself.
So let's dive into an example. I want you to picture this. You just did a major presentation for your leadership team. And the next day you are in the office and you realize that you've really got to go and have a bio break because you were working all morning and you didn't get a chance to. So you start rushing to the bathroom. All of a sudden, your CEO comes in front of you and says, hey, listen, you did an amazing job on that presentation yesterday. I want you to come with me and I want to update a couple of slides with you because I want to share it with our board members. I think it's essential for us to get these investments that we need. Let's go.
What do you do? Right? On one hand, you are excited. You feel energized. You notice the CEO seeing you. You want to be seen in this way. And you want to say yes because you want to say, let's go. Let's flow with it. Let's get this thing done. But you're also concerned because you really need to go to the bathroom.
And you can maybe not be as focused when you're actually updating things with him because you're really focused on needing to go to the bathroom, which is just a need that you have. It might sound like a funny example, but this happens a lot, right? Where we are stuck in a situation where we don't want to displease people, we wanna go with the flow, we wanna prove ourselves, but at the same time, we are ignoring and denying a need that we have.
So you can say, yes, let's go, or you can say no and risk feeling inadequate, risk feeling like you kind of broke that energy flow and you're starting to act like not as confident, right? So in that moment, you have a choice to say, yes, let's go, or you also have a choice to show up confidently and say, "Yes, I would love to help you with that, and I'm so glad that what I presented yesterday made such an impact for you. I need to go to the bathroom really quick and grab my computer, but I'll be in your office in less than five minutes."
So you can say it in a super confident manner, right? But oftentimes what happens is we don't stop ourselves, we don't pause, we don't give ourselves permission to check in with ourselves, and we reactively say yes, particularly with authority figures. So you want to notice if this happens more with authority figures, but it could happen with your peers as well. We want to please and get the thing done, but in the process we oftentimes miss out on taking care of ourselves.
And I want to highlight that again this is not just a problem with you, this is a problem with a lot of female leaders. There's actually an article by the Harvard Business Review that did research and the article's called Why Women Say Yes When They Want to Say No. The research explores the pressures many women feel to avoid saying no, which can impact their mental health, lead to increased stress, and diminish their effectiveness at work. The article also discussed how women may feel compelled to agree to extra work out of fear of being seen as less committed.
And this is particularly a big one because women are oftentimes competing with men, and they don't want to say, I have to leave early to pick up my kids, or they don't want to say certain things that might appear that they have something that they're focused on that's not just work-related. But what happens here is that you, again, are not showing up authentically and you're denying pieces of yourself. But the real tragedy here is that women that take on too many of these tasks, they actually burn out and they also limit opportunities for advancement because they're not focused on high impact career advancing work. By saying yes to things, you're actually saying no to other things.
And in today's podcast, I really wanna highlight that piece because that is the piece that is really detrimental to women and really contributes to women leaving the workforce or feeling really dissatisfied or totally burnt out. So let's dive into common reasons why we struggle to say no.
First of all, it's the fear of disappointment or damaging the relationship, right? Oftentimes we're thinking about this in an all-or-nothing way. We either have to do something or say something to show up in a certain way or else something bad's going to happen. Maybe your thought is, I am not as committed or I am not good enough or this person's going to think lowly of me.
There might also be perfectionism at play, this desire to please, right, which is very culturally for women – we want to make people feel safe and secure, and it is a natural part of feminine leadership to notice other people's feelings and to make them feel comfortable. Culturally, there's societal pressures for us to do that too. You know, hosting people in your house, having that welcome, warm feeling. Putting other people's needs ahead of your own.
That might also be something that you have learned culturally in your family. I oftentimes ask the women that I coach what their mom did, right? And oftentimes they say, well, my mom never put herself first. It was always the family, always other people, taking care of other people, right? So you want to have compassion for yourself because we have a lot of programming in our society, in our culture, in our family that says women should make things more comfortable for other people. And that saying no is not okay.
That saying no means that you are a bad sister, you're a bad worker. There might be thoughts that are deeper, that are limiting, that cause you to feel this guilt. This is really what is caused by when you say no and you feel guilty, it's these patterns and thoughts. And so oftentimes I'm asking my clients to dig a little deeper and see what's coming up for them around that. What does it mean? And does that actually help them progress to who they want to be or is it keeping them stuck?
I'm going to share with you my triple P strategy which will really help you to slow down, to pause, and to strategically think about what saying no could really be for you. I want you to think about this framework as a way to really embrace saying no and enjoying it because you're saying yes to other things.
You could be saying yes to more strategic, high-impact work that could help you excel and help you to make a bigger impact in your organization and the people that you lead. You could be saying yes to more mental and emotional well-being because you're not constantly rushing from place to place. You could be saying yes to even more high-quality work because you actually have the time and energy to focus on it. And when you're connecting with your team members, you have the time to give them that context and clarity.
So I want you to start thinking about what saying no actually means. Because our minds will go quickly to the limiting belief that we're somehow bad or that we're somehow going to disappoint other people. And what happens in this is we're actually not in tune with ourselves. We're not connected with ourselves.
So let me share an example of this that actually happened to me and I will talk you through this strategy that has really helped me slow down, notice myself, and ask myself some really critical questions so that I can get more clear on what I want to do.
So this is the scenario. I had a big trip planned with my boyfriend and again, personally, I was excited about it. It was the beginning of the year and about a week before this big trip, my CEO got all of our leadership together and said, listen, we are going to enter a process to buy a company. The people on this call are critical to that mission. And I expect all hands on deck for this. This is our chance to acquire a big piece of our portfolio that's missing that could really change the way our whole company grows and expands, and I need all of you there. I remember getting off of that call and just feeling a lot of pressure, right?
So the first P is really permission to notice and name your emotions and your needs, right? So my emotion in that moment was a lot of fear because I had just planned this big trip and I was looking forward to it. And now some new information was happening, right? There was a big transaction happening. I needed to be part of there for the due diligence. I was the finance leader.
And so of course the big P there was pausing, giving myself permission to notice and name my emotions. And then the second part of the framework is purpose. And this is really where you can start diving into strategic discernment about your decision-making.
So this is where you slow down and notice. So on one hand, I'm like, I could just say, I wanna go ahead with this vacation because I'm ready to do so. I planned it out and I will set my team up well to do this, right? At the same time, I knew that my peers were all on board and I knew others of them had vacations and they were shifting things around, so I also saw what they were doing.
And then thirdly, for me, it was a pivotal time in my career. I had not done an M&A transaction before, and it was a big piece of my personal resume that I wanted experience in and I wanted to be part of that. So for me, that purpose piece really helped me strategically decide that yes, I wanted to stay here for this, but the other part for me was also that I wanted to connect with my boyfriend and that might need to look differently.
So the powerful communication piece is the third piece of this. This is really where you can align and get clear with yourself of how you want to proceed. For me, it was to say, you know, telling my boss, hey, I've decided to cancel my vacation, but I am planning a weekend trip on these dates, and I am going to commit to that, you know. My trip, I told my boyfriend, you've got to go by yourself, I'm making this choice, right?
So even owning that choice, owning that no, saying no to that, helped me feel more empowered. Not like work was making me do something, but it was actively my choice in it. I also shared with my boss that I am gonna be canceling this but I will be going on vacation for a weekend and that meant taking a Friday off and coming back on the Monday so it wasn't gonna be as long of a vacation. But it was still going to meet some of my needs and not be just saying no to everything.
The art of saying no and setting boundaries without guilt is really embracing the thought that it's not all or nothing, right? When our brains go to it's all or nothing, we're very quick to say yes because we don't want to feel all of those feelings or those questions that come up for ourselves. And oftentimes what we leave on the table is better understanding of ourselves, more empowerment for ourselves.
And so what I ended up doing was I told my boss, listen, I am willing to cancel my two-week vacation. I know this is super important and I want to be here for it. This is a big part of my own career development and I wanna be all hands on deck for it. However, I will be taking a Friday to a Monday off, so having a long weekend where I will go on that vacation, but I'll make sure that my team has everything we need and if there are super important meetings, then I am willing to do those.
So by using this method, I was able to number one, give myself permission to notice my own feelings and oftentimes it is not about me being number one, putting all of my feelings and needs first. It's about recognizing even what those feelings are so that you can understand and make purposeful choices, which is the second piece of the framework.
And then thirdly, it's communicating powerfully. Communicating in a way that allows people to understand you, to trust you, understand where you're coming from. And these, even in the act of saying yes or no to someone, it is your ability to make yourself seen and heard and create an impact in that relationship. The way you handle these communications, especially with senior leaders, could really amplify your leadership because they can see you as emotionally mature. They can see you as somebody who's taking care of themselves.
They'll see you as somebody that is not building up a lot of resentment and worried that they're going to burn out. So that was one example. So I just wanted to share that with you because you can use this Triple P method to really give yourself, again, permission to feel what you need to feel and name them, purpose, making a choice from purpose, and thirdly, communicating powerfully.
So I want to share one more example with you. In this case, it was one of my clients. So she was having a big dilemma. There was a big launch happening in her company. She had been working on this project for a long time, and all the work had been done, actually. It was actually an exciting time. And she didn't know that she was going to be tapped to be one of the people that was asked to come to this ribbon opening. She actually thought she was more behind the scenes.
So when she was asked to come do this, she felt really excited about it. She really wanted to say yes, but she realized her best friend was coming from out of town for two weeks, and her best friend lives internationally in a very far, far away place. So she had plans, you know?
And so again, her permission for her to notice her feelings, both this desire and excitement to say yes and be there for this opening. And then also this desire to protect this time and space with her best friend, which comes along every five years or so. And so when she really sunk down into it and was thinking about a purposeful choice, what she actually came to was realizing that her time with her friend was more important than this coming to the launch.
So she decided to communicate that powerfully to both the organization and let them know, hey, thank you so much for tapping me for this launch event. I feel really honored to have been asked. However, I have prior commitments and I can't make it, but I will send somebody on my team if that works for you guys. So again, that's powerful communication but you can't get there unless you slow down and give yourself time to notice what your emotions are, what your purpose is, and how you wanna communicate this, right?
Oftentimes people are in such a rush and things are miscommunicated, and if you just say no really quickly, then that guilt comes in because you are not helping yourself be seen and heard by other people and your mind is just giving you limiting thoughts about the way that you're showing up. You're not a team player. All of that internal cha-cha that's really killing your confidence because it's basically saying you're not good enough or you're not working hard enough. And we know that that's not the case, right?
Protecting our time and mental and emotional energy, making sure that we are mitigating burnout and resentment is really part of us showing up as effective, authentic leaders in our lives, and we're modeling that for other people. So I want you to think about that the next time somebody asks you to do something.
You know, for me as a finance leader, I felt very strongly about protecting my team's time. As a finance leader, we had so many initiatives and you could probably relate to this, right? System changes that come from the corporate level, lots of demands coming from the business and prioritization and discernment about what is most important and why is such an important part of showing up as a leader and protecting not only your energy but the energy of your team and making sure that they're not overworked and that they're not, you know, picking up all of the pieces.
I want you to really think about this in that broader sense that when we say no to something, we are saying yes to higher quality work. We are saying yes to our team members not getting burnt out. We are saying yes to important, high priority work that is coming from the leadership team.
And whenever I would say no to parts of the company or my peers that would ask for things, I would always give them context. And this really helped me not feel guilty. I was unconflicted because I said, listen, I get that you want to do this project. We don't have the time or resources on my team to analyze all of this data. But what I can do is give you the raw data. You can take a look at it and we can try to find time to do this later on in the year. But right now it is investment reviews season and we are focused on that. We have deadlines and we have board presentations and that's why this work can't be prioritized.
So it's also about that relationship, right? But it starts with that relationship with you. If you can help yourself by sitting with your own thoughts and feelings, aligning to your purpose, then you'll be better able to communicate powerfully. But it starts with first coming terms with yourself and having that conversation with yourself.
The more you're able to have that conversation with yourself and feel strongly about why you're saying no and to be able to give context, the better you're going to be able to assert yourself powerfully, not give a lot of justification, right? Because most of the time when people are giving you a big story or lots of justification, it's because they feel bad and they feel guilty.
And so they're almost trying to manage your emotions or talk to you in a certain way to not feel a certain thing. But really, they're just coming off as kind of like overdoing it, overworking the conversation versus say, hey listen, I get you need this, I can't do it, this is why. Right? It's actually pretty simple, but again you have to do that work to align with yourself before you dive in.
Alright, let me give you a real-time leadership challenge. This came from one of my clients recently. Her boss called her on a Friday and said, listen, are you able to go to this hospital site in the morning between 7am and 9am every day next week? And my client, she is such a great team player. She always wants to be there for her team, but she also wants to be there for her family. And 7am to 9am for her was the time when she would take her child to school and her husband would need to do a lot of different things to his schedule to make it work, right?
So on one hand she was like I want to say yes, but on another hand, I also noticed in my body that this is really causing me to change some of my routines, some of my boundaries that are in place. And when she went to purpose, right, she really thought, I want to be a team player. But here's the thing. Her boss didn't give her any context as to why she needed to cover for this other person. In this purpose part is where you can ask more clarifying questions.
So she actually asked her boss, hey, listen, I am open to doing it maybe for a couple of days next week. It's really difficult for me and my husband's schedule, but I really want to understand why is the person that's supposed to do this work, why is he not able to do it?
And her boss actually never came back to her. He said, actually, that's a great question. Let me ask. He never asked, right? And so in her mind, she was worried that she might not be a good team player, but in fact, she doesn't actually know if she's doing this as a favor, just helping someone out, or is there some urgent reason, or maybe another team member just doesn't feel like it? In that case, it's probably okay to just say no because that's also not teammate behavior.
So you want to slow down and answer those. What actually happened for her is she was able to ask powerful questions, communicate powerfully, and get really specific for herself about when she would say no and why and when she would say yes, right? So in this case, her boss actually came back and said, don't worry, we have somebody else doing this work, and you don't need to worry about it. So just by her asking the question helped her to, instead of automatically just saying yes and wanting to be a team player, it gave her more strategic discernment by asking the questions and waiting to see versus jumping into it.
Alright, so now that you've learned the three-P strategy, I want you to go out and practice it this week. First, identify one area in your life where you need to set boundaries and take stock of what that is. Oftentimes, we don't pause enough to think about this, but think about what comes up for you when you're like, I wish I could say no and not feel guilty in this area.
It could be a team member that is always asking you to do something that is really their job, or it could be that you are staying super late to do a job that is important but not super urgent and you could be pushing back more on those types of requests.
So pick that area and what I want you to do is number one pause and give yourself permission to notice and name your emotions. How are you feeling? What are your needs? I always like to tell my clients that the body never lies and the more we can get in touch with our emotions, the more we can trust ourselves and our choices. So notice that for yourself.
And then secondly, purposefully choose what you wanna do. Think about the trade-off of saying yes or no. What are you actually saying yes to? And what are you actually saying no to? And what is more in line with the authentic leader that you are moving towards becoming?
And then lastly, communicate powerfully. Share your thoughts, build rapport, give people context, let them into your world so they understand you. The more you do this, the more you can actually learn to say no in a way that is not threatening to you or the other person and actually helps bring people closer and helps people understand and know you better.
And it takes practice. So I also want to encourage you if it is messy and it feels messy, then you're in the right place to be learning these skills, right? If it was easy, you would have already done it. It is meant to be uncomfortable when we stretch and grow, but when you really think about what you're saying no to, I want you to also really focus on what are you saying yes to?
Is it more high-quality work, more impactful work, more high value work that could help you and your team members and your company grow in different ways? Is it saying yes to more quality time with your family and your friends? Is it saying yes to more you having satisfaction and fulfillment in your life? Is it saying yes to more energy and less rushing around in your life? Are you saying yes to becoming the person that you have always wanted to be? The person that can say that's a hard no for me and feel really grounded and unconflicted about it?
This is the prize of learning and practicing these skills. The more you practice these skills, the quicker you're going to be able to say no, and the more likely you will feel unconflicted and not guilty about your no. You will start embracing your no as a wonderful gift for you in terms of protecting your time and energy, but also a way to create rapport and trust with other people.
All right, go out and practice it, try it on, let me know what you think. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and DM me directly. I'd love to hear from you. And I want to hear how these strategies are impacting you and changing the way you lead.
Okay, so that is our episode for this week. Next week's episode is a really juicy one and I want to invite you into this. The episode title is about your frustration with white male leaders. Is it holding you back? Have a think about that. It is often something that is conscious to some leaders and unconscious to others, but this is one that I see over and over with a lot of the women that I coach and I want to dive into this topic.
All right, see you next week. Bye.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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