Why hearing No is better than hearing Yes

There are times when a leader has a breakthrough. A moment in their career when their view of the world changes and as a result their career suddenly takes an upward swing.

As a leadership coach, I train leaders to become better in their roles so I’m lucky enough to witness such breakthroughs.

Last week a client of mind had one which I would like to share with you because I believe his experience is one you might relate to. A client of mine leads a team of twenty and like many businesses, has recently been struggling financially so found himself in the difficult situation of having to talk to his team about the possibility of having to make people redundant. He was nervous about the meeting yet afterwards he called me in a positive mood because during the meeting he expected a lot of disagreement but everyone was quiet and hardly said a word.

When they did they just nodded with agreement and the occasional “yes.”

The leader was happy with the outcome and he had every right to be happy as it was a good outcome but it wasn’t a great outcome. My clients hire me in order to make them a great leader, because they are already good leaders.

So I had to break the news that while he had a good meeting it wasn’t a great meeting.

The reason was, and I will explain this in more detail shortly, that good leaders invite people to say “yes” while great leaders invite people to say “no.”

To be good you need to know what you are doing right - to be great you need to know what you are doing wrong

We are taught at a very early age that it’s better to say “yes” than it is to say “no.”

When we first go to school our parents tell us “do what the teacher tells you.”

We are told that questioning people especially those more senior to us is wrong and disrespectful and that is perfectly understandable but what is often left unsaid is that to become good at something you need to be told what you are doing correctly yet to become great you need to be told what you are doing wrong.

It’s being aware of your limitations, and your mistakes that enable you to fulfil your potential but it’s difficult because it’s not in people’s nature to highlight areas of improvement.

People are more likely to agree with you than tell you the truth.

Successful teams hold each other accountable

A good example of this was when I was helping a coach of a rugby team.

They had a mixture of young, and experienced players and the team was going through a tough time losing quite a few games.

The team was skillful but players where making silly mistakes but the younger players didn’t feel comfortable highlighting these errors especially if the error was made by a senior player.

They felt that it would be disrespectful to say anything and this behaviour happened off the pitch. When a player turned up late for training or broke team rules everyone remained quiet.

The coach was frustrated so asked me to talk to the team.

We had a chat about what the team wanted and they all wanted to win games and in order to do this they recognised their need to become better.

The team knew what they needed to do but they never felt comfortable speaking up, they wanted to be respectful. But was it respectful allowing a colleague to make mistakes and not tell them or if you truly cared for those around you would you help them become better. It’s the people who truly care for you that tell you the truth and once the team realised this they started holding each other accountable and the errors stopped and the team started winning again.

Have the courage to invite “no”

One of the reasons why successful leaders work with coaches like myself is that it’s very difficult to obtain critical feedback at work.

People don’t like telling the boss that they are wrong yet it’s the team that knows the leader best.

But it is rarely the source of constructive feedback and it’s completely understandable because leaders often make it difficult for their team to be honest.

I’ve witnessed many leaders asking for feedback but when it’s the feedback that they don’t want to hear they instantly dismiss it.

This is a sign of poor leadership and a sign of insecurity.

In order to become a great leader, you need to create an environment that people feel comfortable being honest even if they say things you don’t want to hear.

At this point I have to stress that the leader has to listen but they don’t have to agree just because someone says you are wrong it doesn’t mean you are.

It’s difficult for people to speak up so as a leader you need to encourage people to talk and have the courage in yourself to listen.

Silence is the death of teamwork

Now back to the leader I mentioned at the start of this article. He was originally happy when people were quiet in the meeting but he soon realised that silence is the death of teamwork.

This was a breakthrough for the leader because he understood that when a problem exists a solution only presents itself when people share ideas and more importantly those ideas are challenged so robust workable solutions are presented.

If people do not have the courage to speak up, then it’s the responsibility of the leader to give people that courage by encouraging discussion and not automatically rejecting any comments that they personally may disagree with and making it clear that their leader wants solutions and not problems.