How to Disagree with Your Boss
Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Simple steps for sharing your concerns and influencing decisions
What you’ll learn and how you can apply it
- Identify when, where, and how to raise disagreement professionally
- Frame your concerns using facts, solutions, and business impact
- Create a respectful disagreement approach that protects trust and strengthens credibility
Course description
Many employees have valid concerns and ideas that don’t align with their boss’s, but they hesitate to raise these issues because they do not want to appear negative, disrespectful, or difficult to work with. This short session with career development expert Imran Afzal teaches you how to disagree with your boss in a respectful, thoughtful, and productive way.
You’ll focus on three key areas: choosing the right time, tone, and setting; using facts, solutions, and business impact instead of complaints; and disagreeing in a way that builds trust rather than erodes it. Through short exercises, role-based examples, discussion, and reflection, you’ll discover an effective communication strategy that you can apply right away.
This live event is for you because...
- You’re an individual contributor, manager, team lead, project owner, client, or technical/nontechnical stakeholder who needs to raise concerns, challenge ideas, or offer alternative recommendations at work.
- You’re a professional who’s looking to develop important soft skills
Prerequisites
- (Optional) Bring one example of a workplace situation where you disagreed with a decision, had a concern, or wanted to suggest a different approach.
Schedule
The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.
Choose the right time, tone, and setting (15 minutes)
- Presentation: Why timing and tone matter; deciding whether to speak privately, ask questions first, or wait for a better moment
- Hands-on exercise: Identify the best time, tone, and setting for a realistic disagreement scenario
Use facts and solutions, not complaints (20 minutes)
- Presentation: Separating emotion from evidence, connecting concerns to business impact, and presenting a practical recommendation
- Group discussion: Why complaints create resistance, while facts and solutions create productive conversation
- Hands-on exercise: Convert a complaint into a fact-based concern with a suggested solution
Disagree in a way that builds trust (15 minutes)
- Presentation: Showing respect, listening to the manager’s perspective, asking thoughtful questions, and supporting the final decision professionally
- Hands-on exercise: Practice a simple respectful disagreement script using a workplace example
Communication plan (10 minutes)
- Hands-on exercise: Build a simple disagreement conversation plan for one real or sample scenario
- Group discussion: How to follow up after the conversation and maintain trust even when the answer is no
- Q&A
Your Instructor
Imran Afzal
Imran Afzal is the CEO of UTCLI Solutions and an instructor with global reach, having taught over a million students worldwide. His earlier work with Fortune 500 companies in finance, fashion, and tech media included projects such as data center migrations, VMWare deployment, monitoring tools implementation, and Amazon cloud migration. He has focused on training since 2010, leveraging his experience in systems administration, engineering, leadership, and entrepreneurship. He has earned certifications in Linux Systems Management, UNIX Operating Systems, RHCSA, and Linux System Administration and System Internals, among other professional certifications. Committed to the cause of education and community service, he also founded a nonprofit school for children in pre-K through grade 10. Imran graduated with honors in computer information systems at Baruch College, City University of New York, and earned an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology.