How to say no without authority

Doug · 2025-10-22

Table of Contents

At work, saying no to someone higher on the org chart is safe if you first earn their trust and if it's for the good of the business.

There's more than one type of authority. Being the boss is just one. The red circle is smallest because it's the weakest.

Key ideas

There's more than one kind of authority
Saying "no" without positional authority is a negotiation
Relational authority is a valid negotiating position
You earn relational authority when you make people feel understood
To understand someone, you first have to cool down, even if you disagree
When your "no" is aligned with business objectives (increased revenue or reduced costs), you can negotiate with a clear conscience.
To negotiate, you need to establish common ground.
You are the only factor you can control, so dig through your beliefs and worldviews for that common ground.

Why read this?

Hackers lack soft skills. That includes me.

(For the general audience: the term "hacker" doesn't mean what you think. If you're comfortable with a command line interface, you're probably a hacker. Being mysterious and unethical is not part of the definition).

I showed a draft of this post to my wife, who is an elementary school teacher. She remarked, "In my line of work, this is very basic stuff. Like, not interesting at all. Do you think tech people need this post?" I don't know you, dear reader, but I've been in this game long enough to know that hacker culture does not esteem soft skills. We'd much rather learn Haskell or complain about the Apple tax. Seven employers have not subjected me to such training: what soft skills I possess, I've learned on my own. My hope is this post gives you a head start.

Intro

About a week ago, a software developer, nickname him Thrug (a cousin of Grug), submitted a post to the /r/ExperiencedDevs subreddit with the title, Why do people think software development is easy? In short, the Thrug's management asked for an unrealistic deliverable and did not appreciate his manner of protest:

[Management says], "it should be simple to build" ... I am always sort of at a loss as to how to even respond ... When I tell them no that’s not possible, they get upset and treat it as me being difficult ... One guy or a few are asked to build the impossible. ¹

Diagnosis

To be brief, Thrug's employer exhibits the traits of a pathological organization. As for Thrug, his escalated emotional state blocks any capacity for empathy and persuasion.

A pathological organization

Anyone who has read the book Accelerate ² can quickly discern from the following red flags that Thrug is working amongst dysfunction. I wouldn't apply for a job at Thrug's company:

There's a hero culture. The company expects an individual to deliver what should take a team.
There's an absence of psychological safety. Messengers get shot. Blame is the norm. For being realistic, Thrug is labeled "difficult", though I think some of the fault rests with the manner of his pushback, which I'll get to in a moment.
Long project timelines imply infrequent deployments, which means each deployment carries greater risk, which contributes to...
High change failure rate. Bugs are the probable outcome of rushed projects. Remember "Good, fast, cheap. Choose two." ³
No learning culture. According to Thrug, this isn't the first time the company has ignored developers and overpromised deliverables.

Thrug is in a tough environment; he isn't crazy.

Blinded by feelings

At the same time, some the criticism from Thrug's management is valid.

His post includes charged, accusatory language and absolute statements:

"managers dictating what softwares to make"
"These people have no concept of technology"
"everyone thinks things can just be tossed into the magical black box"
"zillion other things"
"just flat out impossible"

From its length, I'm guessing the post took Thrug at least one coffee break to write. If this is the language Thrug deploys after cooling off a bit, I can infer he was at least as escalated when communicating with his management in realtime. This lends some validity to the label "difficult".

It's clear that Thrug feels strong negative emotions: he feels frustrated and exasperated at being misunderstood, isolated with no leadership in his corner, and defensive when accused of being the problem.

Like I said, Thrug has good reason to be upset: his worldviews are in conflict with his workplace.

He believes that craftsmanship is more important than speed.
He believes that expertise should be respected.
He believes management is theatrics.

The problem isn't that Thrug is upset. It's that he stays there and doesn't move forward toward constructive resolution. He's not exactly endearing himself to his leadership. Nobody in management can say, "Well, Thrug didn't perform as I expected, but he's a great guy and I enjoy having him around." As a result, the business misses out on his valuable perspective. It's up to Thrug to make a change, for his benefit and the benefit of the business.

Remedy

Now that we know Thrug's failure mode (overheated emotions), we can prescribe a path to resolution:

Deescalate
Humanize
Negotiate

If Thrug can deescalate his emotions, he will be able to empathize with his management's perspective and to show he cares. He will be willing to listen, to back off from his hardline "no", and to negotiate options. All this will flip their perception. Once they believe he understands them and is on their side, they will be much more likely to listen to him.

Deescalate

We can't think straight when we are escalated emotionally; the structure of the brain all but guarantees it. When activated, the amygdala mostly preempts the prefrontal cortex's ability to think ⁴. You have to calm down first.

To calm down, take two minutes to close your eyes and breathe deeply. This can shift the brain out of crisis mode and let you start to think. Then, identify your feelings. Naming them is enough.

If you're face-to-face with someone, you may not have two minutes to calm down. While it is possible with practice to deescalate in a matter of seconds, it's best to ask for a few moments to think or to take a trip to the restroom.

Humanize

Once you are calm enough to think somewhat objectively, your goal is to humanize the other party. Naming their probable feelings is a great start, because it bootstraps your empathy. Asking questions lets them clarify their feelings and perspective. Listening is like attaching a debugger to a person and inspecting their local variables and emotional call stack. Are they angry, fearful, insecure? Does their mom have cancer? Are they behind on their mortgage?

Example: Imagine you're Thrug. Think about the manager you're most upset with. You just left a meeting with them ten minutes ago. You've calmed down, or as much as one can in ten minutes. Now ask yourself, what is that manager going through? How do they feel? Here's one possible thought train:

Well, my manager said the Director of Product said we missed quarterly revenue goals and have customer retention issues. That sounds like bad news. The director probably had a tough meeting with the middle managers, from which our meeting resulted. I bet a lot of similar meetings are happening right now, so I'm not alone. This is probably from even higher up: I've often heard the private investor group backing us is pushy. This isn't my manager's fault. He's stuck between a rock and a hard place: the Powers That Be demand more of him, but I know it's not even possible. Moreover, I was really nasty to him about it. I know he's been a manager for only a year. He started out in customer service years ago. I remember him saying offhand a few weeks ago how the call center was way more fun. That's really saying something since our customers are sweat shops and drug cartels. Perhaps training could help my manager, but I know finance is never going to approve it. He's stuck where he's at. With just an associate's degree, he isn't qualified for such a well-compensated role anywhere else. He can't risk it anyway, since he has a wife and toddler and newborn at home. Man, he's in a tough spot.

Next, with a rational mind, Thrug can challenge his own worldviews. For example, he could come to accept that in business, the fundamental purpose of software development is to bring business value, not to practice craftsmanship. This happens to be a worldview that his manager very likely also holds. That's valuable common ground. Thrug can repeat to himself:

Producing beautiful software is not a goal. Solving complex technical problems is not a goal. Writing bug-free code is not a goal. Using sexy programming languages is not a goal. Add revenue. Reduce costs. Those are your only goals. ⁵

Negotiate

Yes, negotiation. When you are saying "no" to someone and don't want to burn a bridge, you are in a negotiation, not just for the decision but also for the relationship.

Now that the other person is a human again in your mind, it's time to communicate with them. You're going to let them know that you are on their side. This addresses the ethos of your negotiating position.

What is ethos?

Ever heard of logos, pathos and ethos? In rhetoric, logos is the logic of your argument. Pathos concerns how people feel about your argument. Ethos is your credibility and authority. You can have a totally valid argument (good logos) and be unpersuasive because you are not trusted (poor ethos).

The ethos you project needs to be genuine. Don't apologize if you aren't. Don't insinuate you are working in someone's interest when you aren't. Don't ask how someone is doing if you don't care. If they get a whiff of your duplicity, you're in doo-doo.

Ethos is authority

Most people when they hear the word authority picture positional authority: an airline captain, your boss, a police officer. You listen to these people because of the consequences they can inflict, which in these cases includes removing you from a flight, firing you, or firing at you.

There are other kinds of authority, and the kind I'm advocating here is relational authority. You listen to someone because you trust them. Relational authority is a kind of earned authority. You're not handed relational authority when you become someone's boss: you have to earn it. Another kind of earned authority is expert authority: You listen to someone because they've proven their competence. It's why you listen to your doctor even if she has poor bedside manners. Thrug's boss may have positional authority over Thrug, but we can infer from Thrug's post that he does not possess relational or expert authority with Thrug. In turn, Thrug doesn't possess any of these three forms of authority with his manager. It's not a good negotiating position.

The restorative conversation

Here's how Thrug can instantly improve his negotiating position with his manager. The next time they talk, he can say, "I apologize for my response last time. I bet it feels like you're between a rock and a hard place, between senior leadership's demands and my rants." Thrug should be prepared for a potentially emotional response. That's good and means he is getting through and it's time to listen. If the response is bland, his inference might be incorrect, or his manager might be guarded. Obviously hasn't forgotten about recent interactions. In these cases, Thrug can simply ask, "How do you feel about all that?" When talked to this way, most people will mirror your gentleness and open up.

Relationship takes time

In particularly broken relationships, it may take time and consistency to restore relational authority.

The strongest relationships have been cultivated over long periods of time. You should always seek to build rapport and trust with people because people are valuable in and of themselves ⁶. However, humans are eager help you if they like you. Ask your DevOps lead about his sickly mother and show genuine concern by following up once or twice. Months later, watch how your request to update the CI pipeline skips the weeks-long backlog and is done two hours after you asked. True story.

Make the offer

With a relationship in place, the conversation can proceed on constructive terms. Thrug can make an initial offer: "I want to help deliver business value. I still think it'll be a long shot, but I'd like to talk about some options to cut scope so we can realistically ship Feature X on time." A back-and-forth follows from there.

In a negotiation, there is always a BATNA: the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. It's what happens if you and the other party fail to reach an agreement. In this case, there are at least two alternatives:

Thrug leaves the company.
The company commits to more than it can deliver. The company misses the revenue, loses to competitors, and Thrug is out of a job anyway.

I think for at least the short term, these two alternatives are worse for the business than negotiating an achievable deliverable.

Summary

When you as a software developer have the insight that a software deliverable is unachievable, it's in the business's interest to negotiate another plan. The negotiated deliverable is more likely to be delivered on time and its business value realized. If you're in a blameful work culture, building relational authority first serves as job security.

This is how you say "no" in a way that earns respect:

Deescalate if necessary. Pause. Breathe. Collect yourself.
Humanize. See the other side's feelings. Let them feel understood and cared about. Listen. Ask questions.
Negotiate.
- Offer choices. Rarely do you actually utter the syllable "no".
- They make a choice
- They walk away feeling good because you're working for their benefit.
- You're protected because they made the choice and they respect you.

It's like the old Aesop fable of the North Wind and the Sun ⁷. The harder the wind blew, the tighter the man held on to his coat. The sun however warmed the man until he willingly removed it. Go forth and do likewise.

References

Addendum: A personal experience

Thrug's post hits close to home, because I recently lived this experience. About eight months ago I was writing software at a company with a similar management culture. Communication was one-way, and the company was piling on tech debt faster than anyone could track. I was a vocal messenger but was viewed as the problem. Thrug's management is comparably patient: I was fired after eight weeks.

My dismissal was tragic. I knew my tech skills could have helped that company, but I never got to deploy them because of my manner of communication. It's tempting to blame the company, but I am the only factor which I know can change. In the months after, I came to regard soft skills as my new growth area: I bought no less than seven books on emotional intelligence, negotiation, conflict, and leadership. I also went through a counseling program at my church.

As my software engineering career stretches toward two decades, more often I've found it necessary to turn things down. The audience and context varies: sometimes I'm speaking with mentees, sometimes with peers, and often enough with superiors. Sometimes it's declining a change in a pull request. Sometimes it's in a meeting, talking the team down from a design decision. A couple of times, it was on the phone with a customer, tactfully helping them see the problem was on their end or that the software works as intended.