How to become better at standing up for your values—even when it’s hard

As a child, Sunita Sah says she learned to be “good.” Growing up in the U.K. in the 1980s as the daughter of Indian immigrants, she was praised for being obedient and studious at home and at school. But she also experienced racial slurs and hostile stares. Sah lived in a place that didn’t always welcome differences—and her family was different.

Sah had long considered her mother to be a compliant person. Quiet and deferential, her mom was the model of goodness. But one day that changed. When Sah was 7 years old, she and her mother were accosted in an alley by teenage boys, who shouted at them to “Go back home.” They were alone, vulnerable, and outnumbered. 

That’s when Sah’s mother did something surprising. Rather than shrink under their threats, she stood up straight and confronted them. “You think you’re clever?” she said to the boys. “You think you’re so strong. Big, tough boys, right?” Then it was the boys’ turn to shrink. They took off, and Sah and her mother continued on.

Sah would come to realize that “defiance isn’t a personality trait,” she says. “We can choose.”

Sah, a physician, psychologist, and professor at Cornell University’s SC Johnson School of Business, has spent much of her career studying decision-making, including how and when we choose to defy. 

“Defiance is not reducible to strength or weakness, courage or cowardice. It is not solely for the brave, the strong, or the extraordinary,” she writes in her new book, Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. “We all have the capacity to be defiant.”

WHY DEFIANCE IS SO DIFFICULT

Defiance—the decision to act according to your own values when you’re pressured to do otherwise—may be a matter of choice, but it’s certainly not an easy one. Many people find themselves wanting to stand up for what they believe is right, but unable to access that defiance.

Nearly all of us have been rewarded for compliant behavior, over and over again. We get good grades in school if we study; we get positive performance reviews at work if we support the company’s goals. Compliance is so conditioned, that for many it’s an automatic response. So when it’s time to defy and act according to our own principles, it feels unnatural.

Compliance can be a good thing, but there is a dangerous side, too, Sah says. We learn quickly that we can keep earning promotions if we go along with shady business practices, or avoid retribution if we look the other way when we see a colleague being harassed.

1. WE DON’T KNOW HOW TO DEFY

Even if we want to side with our own values over external pressure, we don’t always know how. If you see a colleague misleading a client, whom do you tell, and what do you say? Will it be enough to gently nudge someone to investigate the problem, or should you confront the person yourself? If we’re accustomed to complying, it’s hard to picture what defiance looks like.

2. WE WORRY ABOUT INSULTING OTHERS

Another barrier is what Sah calls “insinuation anxiety,” or the fear that we may appear to insult or undermine someone if we question their decisions or behavior. Rather than speaking up, we say nothing to avoid looking insulting or insubordinate.

3. THE COST OF DEFIANCE IS SOMETIMES TOO GREAT

For some, the cost of defiance is too risky. Speaking up at work can cost you your paycheck and your healthcare. We’ve seen corporate whistleblowers fired, dragged through court, and blacklisted in their industries. When the risk of defying is too great, we sometimes have to defer our defiance to another day when the costs are manageable.

LEARNING HOW TO DEFY

Defiance is a choice, Sah writes in her new book. Defiance is also a process. Two decades of research have shown Sah that “defiance and compliance are not binary, but rather exist on a spectrum . . . encompassing a gradation of understanding, questioning, and action.” She believes her mother had likely encountered those boys several times, perhaps defying them in small ways before putting her foot down.

The difference between someone who does defy and someone who doesn’t is preparation, she explains. Surprise can force us into compliance.

Defiance can be practiced in small ways. You can envision yourself in the situation and practice saying aloud what you hope you will be able to say in the moment. “The first time we speak up, we might stumble, but with repetition our voice grows more confident,” she says.

Practice is good because the best time to decide whether to defy or comply is not in the heat of the moment, Sah writes. Pausing can give you time to calculate the risks of defiance and form a plan to respond. Remember: You don’t have to defy every time. If you’re caught off guard and are unable to respond as you’d like to, prepare yourself for the next opportunity.

Most acts of defiance are not historic moments, nor are they necessarily memorable ones. But those small moments of defiance can help us build the muscle we need when it matters most. “The forces that lead to compliance are more complex than they might appear, but they are not insurmountable,” Sah writes. “We may not always know how to defy. But we can learn.”

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