{"id":5565,"date":"2016-12-05T20:54:57","date_gmt":"2016-12-06T02:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=5565"},"modified":"2016-12-05T20:54:57","modified_gmt":"2016-12-06T02:54:57","slug":"the-courage-to-stop-when-everyone-says-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/05\/the-courage-to-stop-when-everyone-says-go\/","title":{"rendered":"The Courage to Stop When Everyone Says ‘Go’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It could be that your greatest leadership contribution was never noticed; was never recognized, and might not have resulted in any new ground being taken for your cause. <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Because your greatest contribution might have been when you said \u2018no\u2019.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This point was drilled home during a recent leadership coaching session with Willow Creek Commmunity Church senior pastor Bill Hybels to a group of 130 international leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany organizations have been wrecked by an inability of a leader to say no,\u201d Bill cautioned. \u201cSometimes a leader can just be too fearful to say \u2018no\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hybels went on to give an example of a \u201cno\u201d that had prevented Willow from experiencing tremendous financial hardship.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had just completed two large, successful building projects,\u201d Bill explained, \u201cAnd we were now getting ready to launch a third project. But something within me was telling me we couldn\u2019t handle one more project like this. The timing didn\u2019t seem right. Despite tremendous pressure to move ahead, I had to stand my ground. I said \u2018no\u2019 to that third project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within months, the economic collapse of 2008 had hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI shudder to think what would have happened to Willow if we had moved ahead on that third project,\u201d Bill recalled. \u201cI really think that saying \u2018no\u2019 prevented us from a serious financial calamity.\u201d<\/p>\n

When all of the pressure is mounting to say \u2018yes\u2019 to a new idea, how does a leader know when they must instead say a clear and definitive \u2018no\u2019?<\/p>\n

This is more leadership art than science, but these are some key factors to consider:<\/p>\n

The timing might not be right<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sometimes the right idea just comes along at the wrong time.<\/p>\n

The kind of needed support might not be right<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There may be many people urging you to move forward. But are these the key stakeholders?<\/p>\n

The conditions night not be\u00a0not right.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Is the funding level right? Are the right team members in place?<\/p>\n

Just remember that leadership requires courage, and indeed very often that courage is demonstrated in the boldness to move forward.<\/p>\n

But sometimes the greatest act of leadership courage is found in standing firm.<\/p>\n

And in saying a clear \u2018no\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It could be that your greatest leadership contribution was never noticed; was never recognized, and might not have resulted in any new ground being taken for your cause. Because your greatest contribution might have been when you said \u2018no\u2019.\u00a0 This point was drilled home during a recent leadership coaching session with Willow Creek Commmunity Church…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,738,478,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discipline2","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5565"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5571,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5565\/revisions\/5571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}