Here is a situation I’m sure you know well:

Someone – could be your manager or another senior stakeholder – tries to lead toward a new direction, but you know it doesn’t feel right.

You can see the gaps and risks, and you try to explain your perspective. You’re not trying to block progress. You’re trying to make sure the right decision is made.

But it rarely lands that way.

Instead of being seen as a helpful leader, you come across as defiant, non-committed, or even worse – like you simply don’t get it. Because when you challenge someone’s idea, especially one they’re invested in, logic alone won’t change their mind.

If you want to shift direction, you have to start from their world, not yours. The real skill isn’t saying no, it’s knowing how to connect to the thinking behind their “yes.”

These few simple steps will ensure your no is actually changing people’s decisions.

Make sure you understand them

When a direction feels wrong, it’s tempting to dismiss it quickly. You see the gaps, the risks, maybe even the politics behind it, and you move straight to explaining why it won’t work. But that skips the most important part: truly understanding why it makes sense to them.

Your job isn’t to get them to explain it better. It’s to make sense of it yourself. You’re the owner, and ownership means understanding every perspective that shapes the decision, even the ones you don’t agree with.

Before you push back, spend time connecting the dots. What do they know that you don’t? What are they optimizing for? What problem are they really trying to solve? Sometimes you’ll find logic that changes your own view. Other times, you will simply get clearer on where the gap truly is. And so might they.

Either way, you can’t influence someone if you don’t first see the world through their eyes. Only once you’ve made sense of their reasoning – and made sure they know you got it – can your feedback actually move the conversation forward.

Add your concerns

Once you fully understand why the direction makes sense from their point of view, and they know that you get it, you can add yourself to the mix.

Your concerns aren’t instead of everything that’s been said. They come on top of it. You’re not replacing their reasoning with yours. You are creating a more complete picture.

Your concern might sound like, “This seems to assume something that wasn’t proved yet,” or “If we go this way, there’s a risk or consequences that must be considered.” The key is that your input doesn’t contradict what’s already been said. It adds to it.

Remember – you are not taking sides or fighting for your version of the truth. You are making the discussion more complete, more grounded, and ultimately more useful for everyone involved.

Own the solution

All of this is useless unless you drive for a solution. If you stop at raising concerns, you are only adding problems and leaving it to your manager to fix them. That is not influence, that is delegation upward.

Instead, your role is to find a solution that meets both their initial reasoning and the concerns you have raised. Think of it as bridging the two perspectives. It is much easier for others to address your concerns when you bring a practical way forward. Otherwise, your points can feel like abstract objections that are too big to act on.

Make it a point to always strive for a solution. Never leave the concerns hanging. Pushback is only effective when it helps the team move toward a better plan, not just a different opinion.

Pushing back effectively isn’t about being louder, smarter, or more persuasive. It’s about influence, and you can’t influence what you don’t understand. When you make sense of the other person’s reasoning, add your perspective thoughtfully, and own the resolution, you stop sounding like opposition and start leading the conversation.Great pushback doesn’t feel like pushback at all. It feels like a newly established partnership.