"Survival Skills" for Nonprofit CEOs: Part II

Earlier this year, I led a session with a group of nonprofit CEOs focused on “CEO Survival Skills” and shared three practices that I believe can make the practice of leadership more intentional, joyful, and sustainable. This series focuses on those three survival skills and the conversations we had around each of them (which have been reconstructed from memory and should not be considered direct quotes).

In my last post, I wrote about The Power of Pause , highlighting how powerful it is when we take a moment to clear our energy in between meetings and conversations (and the damage that can be done when we don’t). This post focuses on the second survival skill – “Saying No.” Watch for the final post on “Letting Go” in the coming weeks.

Survival Skill?#2:?Saying No

When I named “Saying No” as the second “CEO Survival Skill” in a workshop with a group of nonprofit CEOs earlier this year, there was a lively and immediate response:

“Oh wow, I really need this!”

“Me too!”

“I think I might be a lost cause!”

I wasn’t surprised by the response. In my work as a leadership coach to nonprofit and foundation CEOs, I know that many leaders struggle with saying no – whether to the board, to their teams, to funders, to external stakeholders, or even to themselves.

There are lots of reasons for this:

• The concern that saying no will create missed opportunities for the organization or oneself
• The fear of repercussions from the person who is asking (board members and funders especially)
• The worry that the person asking will feel dismissed, disrespected, or undervalued (often a particular concern when saying no to team members)
• The risk that – by saying no to this particular thing – other opportunities or invitations won’t follow
• The belief that saying no is rude or unkind to an individual person

What’s also surprisingly true is that it’s not uncommon for a leader to admit that part of what makes saying no so difficult for them is that they simply don’t have much experience saying no, because they’ve rarely – if ever – done it.

Consider that for a moment. When a leader is unwilling to say no, that means they are unable to:

• set priorities
• make decisions
• create boundaries for themselves and their team members

These are essential ingredients to strategic organizational leadership. And all of them rely on the ability to say no effectively.

So I decided that in this workshop on CEO Survival Skills, we were going to practice saying no. I asked for a volunteer who genuinely wanted to be better at saying no – someone for whom saying no wasn’t already a practiced skill. A brave soul stepped forward, as did another member of the group who agreed to be her practice partner for the demonstration.

I asked our volunteer to give us an example of something to which it would be generally difficult for her to say no, but that she thinks would be useful from a leadership perspective to be able to decline or set a boundary around. She shared that she gets asked to lunch or coffee a lot, but never feels like she can say no, even when she has really important priorities or deadlines that would be disrupted. Notably, there were lots of nods and comments from the rest of the group, so it was clear that she wasn't the only one struggling with this issue.

I then shared the instructions with our volunteer and her practice partner: the practice partner would invite our volunteer to lunch and our volunteer would respond as she normally would. It went something like this:

• Practice Partner: Well hello, Sue*, this is Louise Jones. I’m calling because your board member, Steve Diaz, suggested I reach out to you to see if we could get together for lunch. Do you have availability next week?
• Sue: Oh, I’m sure I can make that work. How about Tuesday?

I turned to Sue and asked her to tell us, if this scenario were to happen in real life in this very moment, what might that “yes” (to lunch) have disrupted?

She shared that she was working on a huge grant proposal and it would make it tough to hit the deadline and likely that she’d have to work very long hours to do so.

“Great,” I said. “I want you to really internalize that. Think hard about what you’ll be saying no to (the grant proposal and getting it done in a reasonable manner) by saying “yes” to this lunch. “And now we’re going to do this again, but instead of responding as you normally would, you’re going to give a full-bodied, step forward and stomp, arms out and hands up, ‘NO!’ in response.” And I demo-ed what I was describing.

“I’m going to do what?” Sue said?! I said it again, “You’re going to give a full-bodied, step forward and stomp, arms out and hands up, ‘NO!’ in response.”

Sue laughed nervously. “Ok,” she said. “I would never do that in real life, but I’ll do it.”

And she did. And we all laughed. And it was great. Because, as I explained to the group, of course she’d never do that in real life. But it was a big, overdone, and physical “No!” that – in some ways – matches what we feel like we’re saying and doing when we say no much more thoughtfully.

And that’s exactly what we did next.

I asked Sue to think again about why she needed to say no to this lunch (the grant proposal, her work-life balance, and leadership resilience). And then I invited her to think about the following intention: “I am going to say no to this lunch, but yes to this person.” And I asked her to tell me when she was ready to do it again.

Here’s what it sounded like:

• Practice Partner: Well hello, Sue, this is Louise Jones. I’m calling because your board member, Steve Diaz, suggested I reach out to you to see if we could get together for lunch. Do you have availability next week?
• Sue: Oh, it’s so lovely for you to reach out, Louise. Thank you. I’d love to say yes, but I have commitments that will make getting together next week difficult. I would be happy to get together next month if that would be of interest.

It was a beautiful thing to behold. Sue was calm, confident, and kind. And, she beamed as she said, “I did it!”

As we reflected as a group on what we witnessed and observed, I shared a few tips for those who are struggling to set boundaries or say no:

Tip #1: Start Small(er)

For many of us, it’s not comfortable or natural to say no. And – as was raised in our discussion – some leaders (women and leaders of color especially) have learned that they sometimes pay a higher price for doing so. But that doesn’t change the fact that it's essential to our organization's success. If it helps, start with an incremental step, just like Sue did. She didn’t fully say no; she said “Not now.” And that was both 1) helpful to her specific circumstances with the grant proposal deadline and 2) a great first step in learning how to set boundaries. Start thinking about a place where you can practice setting a boundary and then push yourself to keep stretching and building from there.

Tip #2: Consider the Cost of Saying Yes

It’s worthwhile to take the time to think through what – by default – we will be "saying no to” if we say yes to a request that we shouldn’t. In Sue’s case, she would have been saying no to the grant proposal, or at least getting it done in a way that didn’t put a huge burden on herself. Pausing to think this through can give us clarity about why we need to say no and hold ourselves accountable for it.

Tip #3: Depersonalize the Request

Part of why it can be hard to say no is that it can feel like we are saying no to the person, instead of the request. It’s valuable to intentionally decouple those things in our mind so that we can focus on saying no to the request, but not the person. It not only makes it easier for us to say no, but it also makes it kinder and easier to receive for the other person.

Saying no is part of being a strategic leader. It’s essential to maintaining strategic focus, ensuring that we are spending our time on the most important things, and keeping a healthy balance that enables us to thrive over the long term.

What are you working to say no to? And what will setting that boundary make possible for you and your organization?

Want more support for your leadership? If you’re interested in working with a coach to bring intentionality, energy, and joy to your experience of yourself and your leadership, I’d love to hear from you. Schedule a free, 30-minute exploratory conversation with me today .

*Real names not used.