By turning down requests, women in the workplace can keep from overloading their schedule.

By Neal Learner | Illustrations by Jason Raish

JSAM IN MARKETING WANTS YOU TO PROOFREAD HIS PRESENTATION but you’re swamped on deadline. Susan at the reception desk begs you to answer the phone—but your own line is ringing off the hook. Your boss announces that everyone must stay late working on the new account— but your daughter has a big soccer game. So what’s your response? If you’re a woman, it’s likely to be “Sure, I’d be happy to,” quickly followed by kicking yourself. Oftentimes the only thing worse than hearing the word “no” can be the task of saying it yourself.

Many women have difficulty refusing extra tasks at work, even when the tasks overload their schedules—and sanity. Fear of harming carefully nurtured relationships is one reason why women still struggle more than men when delivering a turndown, says Nanette Gartrell, MD, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry with the Center of Excellence in Women’s Health at the University of California, San Francisco.

“The last thing that any of us wants is to lose an important relationship or connection in saying no,” she says, based on what she hears daily in appointments with her female patients. “We build those relationships. We don’t want to lose them.”

That’s not to say focusing on relationships is a bad thing, Gartrell says. Some research shows that women historically have focused on building connections within families, communities and cultures—something that we couldn’t survive without. “I encourage women to be proud of those qualities, even as we work on finding ways to say no and hold onto these relationships,” she says.

Gartrell learned how some women found this balance while researching her book My Answer Is NO… If That’s Okay with You: How women can say NO and (still) feel good about it. She interviewed more than 100 powerful women who recounted how they developed ways of saying no that showed respect and value for the person on the receiving end.

Take, for example, Estelle Freedman, a history professor at Stanford University. Freedman told Gartrell how she used to say yes to every conceivable opportunity early in her academic career. That was the path to success, but it also led to over-commitment and exhaustion.

“At a certain time, she had to turn that around,” Gartrell says. “But she didn’t want to just flip it over 180 degrees and say no to everything, because that felt too disconnected to her.”

As speaking invitations poured in from around the world, Freedman came up with a solution: She keeps a list of junior faculty members by her phone whose careers she knew could benefit from attending one of these events. “So when she says no, she says, ‘Sorry I’m not available, but here is someone who is a terrific alternative.’ And she gives them a leg up with this opportunity. That’s fabulous,” Gartrell says.

So how do women know when it’s time to say no at work? “When you find yourself with your stomach in knots night after night bringing these issues home,” Gartrell says.

Such was the case with one of Gartrell’s clients, a high school guidance counselor in Michigan. “It was a workplace where everybody wasn’t pulling their own weight. The pattern [they] got into was that the women were always taking over and saying, ‘Oh, we’ll do this, we’ll do this’… thinking that [they] were making the whole thing work.” Instead, this guidance counselor’s caseload soared from 300 students to nearly 500. “I really ended up putting myself out there with too many people, and I wasn’t able to be effective,” she says.

The arrival of a new boss—a younger woman with two toddlers— helped the counseling staff set boundaries. “At first, I resented it,” she says. “She is not recognizing that I’m capable of saying ‘yes’ and doing a good job. But my workload was too much. You have to be careful not to measure your worthiness by quantity, by saying yes to everything.”

Gartrell says that by taking time to weigh options—and when appropriate, saying no—women can make sound choices that actually boost their careers.

“When you are making a choice to do things better or [in a way that’s] meaningful to you, you do a better job, and you don’t end up resentful and burned out and wanting to change career paths,” she says. “Being able to set clear limits, and hopefully work on things that advance your career rather than fall into the category of what we all call grunt work … that’s great. That involves knowing where you’re aiming and what’s important to you.”

NO MEANS NO

Nanette Gartrell, M.D., author of My Answer Is NO… If That’s Okay with You: How women can say NO and (still) feel good about it offers five tips on how women (and men) can decline a request in a constructive manner:

First, and most importantly, don’t answer immediately if you can possibly help it. Buy some time by saying, “Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you.”

Then ask yourself, “Do I have to do it, or do I want to do it?”

If you don’t have to do it and you don’t want to do it, communicate your answer of “no” as soon as possible. “It is really important not to leave the person dangling,” Gartrell says.

If you feel it’s important to explain your reasons, do so succinctly. Long elaborate explanations are generally not helpful at work.

If possible, offer an alternative option when turning people down. “It’s always nice to be considerate or helpful when you say no,” she says.