Your Career

You won’t last long in leadership if you treat every “no” as a personal defeat.

The ability to say “no” fairly and dispassionately is central to good leadership, whether you are running a committee, a department, or an institution. But equally vital is knowing how to accept a loss graciously when you are the one who has to take “no” for an answer. It is a skill you can learn and sharpen:

• Be at peace with not getting most of what you want. Campuses are idea factories. Of course not every idea is practical or worth pursuing. Some contradict each other, and some are misguided in the eyes of everyone but their creators. The same is true of your ideas. Proposals you create or champion will be turned down — sometimes by other people objecting and other times by circumstances out of your control. Your mental health will be challenged regularly by this pattern of give and take. Get too emotionally invested in your batting average, and your morale will sink fast.
• In defeat, as in victory, tone and manner matter. You needn’t mask all your feelings with Vulcan-like imperturbability, but a dose of Stoicism is healthy. The people you lead value a strong advocate but will expect you to radiate maturity, steadiness, responsibility. Rejection of your pet project, however personally painful, is an opportunity to show your character.

Continue reading: “The Art of Gracefully Accepting Defeat,” by David D. Perlmutter

Share your suggestions for the newsletter with Denise Magner, an editor at The Chronicle, at denise.magner@chronicle.com. If you’d like to opt out, you can log in to our website and manage your newsletter preferences here.

What we’re reading.

Here’s more on career issues and trends from around the web. See something we should include? Let me know.

• At the Guttmacher Institute, an interactive resource offering state-by-state policies on abortion rights and access.
• In the Harvard Business Review, a look at three ways to retain top talent.
• An essay on Science magazine offers advice on how to make friends while doing research abroad.