Your helpful 'yes' might be costing you more than you think

A few months ago, I was working with a coaching client (let’s call her Clara) who was leading a strategically significant change programme. Her role was high-profile and genuinely difficult. But she had all the skills, capabilities and experience she needed to do well.

Clara’s boss, who we’ll call Jake, had recently joined the organisation. He was intelligent, politically aware, and keen to make his mark. And so, whenever a request came down from above, Jake said yes: yes to additional workstreams, yes to accelerated timelines, yes to new reporting requirements that had not been part of the original plan. And then, with remarkable consistency, he would turn to Clara and tell her that this new work was now hers to deliver.

By the time she came to me, she was exhausted and increasingly resentful. She knew she had to deal with the situation, but the stakes were high and the politics were complex. Her boss was not incompetent. He was not malicious. He was doing what many new and developing leaders do: mistaking relentless accommodation for leadership.

I will come back to Clara’s story, and what she eventually did about it, in next week's newsletter. For now, I want to focus on the behaviours involved. Because what her boss was doing was recognisable immediately and it’s something many of us do when we are new to leadership or new to a more advanced leadership role.

Most new leaders arrive in the role with a deeply ingrained way of working. When you were an individual contributor, being helpful, available, and agreeable was how you earned your place. You said yes to requests because that was what good team members did. You made yourself useful, you stayed likeable, and you built your reputation on being someone people could rely on.

But that identity does not disappear when you are promoted. It comes with you. The problem is that the behaviours that made you a valued team member are not the same ones that make you an effective leader.

Research by Professor Benjamin Laker of Henley Business School, University of Reading, found that 90% of first-time managers struggle to set limits with employees, particularly those who were formerly colleagues or peers. But what is more: over 70% of those managers lost those friendships anyway.

They said yes to preserve the relationship, yet the relationship did not survive anyway.

And, of course, if you are an experienced leader, but new to an organisation, there is a massive temptation to say yes to everything as you look to build your relationships and show what you can do.

The consequences of an inability to say no are not limited to your team. They operate in every direction. Here is how:

Research by Blake and colleagues, published in The Leadership Quarterly in 2022, found that highly agreeable leaders are effective at building and managing relationships but not at driving performance. Over time, teams begin to view them as friends rather than leaders. The quality of feedback suffers and the willingness to make difficult calls declines.

Research by Hu and colleagues, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology in 2019, found that too little assertiveness in peer settings reduces the likelihood that colleagues seek your advice or view you as a credible leader. So, if you never push back or disagree, your fellow leaders do not interpret your endless accommodation as warmth. They interpret it as a signal that they can keep asking.

A study by Gary Yukl and colleagues, with more than 800 citations in the Journal of Applied Psychology, examined which influence tactics worked in three directions — downward to your team, lateral to your peers, and upward to your own leaders. In the upward direction, ingratiation and accommodation were ineffective. What senior leaders responded to was clear, reasoned positions. Which includes a clear sense of what you will and will not take on and why.

Of course, saying ‘yes’ feels like generosity. You are being helpful. You are being a team player. You are keeping relationships smooth. And some of the time that is true.

But, when you say yes to absolutely everything, you are communicating that you do not have a clear sense of what matters. Your team reads it as a lack of direction and becomes disillusioned when the goalposts are moved for them. Your peers read it as a lack of confidence, and the more ruthless ones will exploit it as a weakness. Your senior stakeholders read it as a lack of judgement and leadership nous.

Daniel Ames of Columbia Business School, whose 2009 research on assertiveness and leadership is one of the landmark studies in the field, found that leaders who are rated too low in assertiveness are seen as equally ineffective as those who are too aggressive.

But his research also found that the goal is not a permanently higher level of assertiveness. It is calibration: knowing which situations call for a firm position, and which call for flexibility.

Next week's newsletter is about exactly that. How and when to say no in three different directions — to your team, to your peers, and to your own manager — each of which requires a different approach. And we’ll cover how my coaching client Clara eventually managed this with her boss.

Laker, B., Patel, C., Malik, A., & Budhwar, P. (2020). What to do when you become your friend's boss. Harvard Business Review. Benjamin Laker is Professor of Leadership at Henley Business School, University of Reading.

Blake, A.B., Luu, V.H., Petrenko, O.V., Gardner, W.L., Moergen, K.J., & Ezerins, M.E. (2022). Let's agree about nice leaders: A literature review and meta-analysis of agreeableness and its relationship with leadership outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 33(1), 101593.

Hu, J., Erdogan, B., Jiang, K., Bauer, T.N., & Liu, S. (2019). Getting ahead, getting along, and getting prosocial: Examining extraversion facets, peer reactions, and leadership emergence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(11), 1369–1386.

Yukl, G., & Falbe, C.M. (1992). Consequences of influence tactics used with subordinates, peers, and the boss. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77(4), 525–535.

Ames, D.R. (2009). Pushing up to a point: Assertiveness and effectiveness in leadership and interpersonal dynamics. Research in Organizational Behavior, 29, 111–133.

All of my posts for new leaders are here.

Best

Martin

P.S. If you are struggling with boundaries, I can help you. There are more details here.