To be liked or respected?

“My observation is that we are not only irrational, but predictably irrational—that our irrationality happens the same way, again and again.” - Dan Ariely

General

Progress can only take place if the status quo is challenged. And since the business environment is dynamic, any leader who accepts mediocrity, is bound to get stuck in that comfort zone of mediocrity and cease growing. This is not only true for individual leaders and managers, but also teams and organisations.

In my work with Industry leaders across countries, business domains and cultures, I have noted that at managerial levels and above, technical skills required to conduct tasks are usually in place. What is missing is the ability to strategise, communicate and influence. And to take decisions that 'may not be liked' by peers and subordinates.

The Need to be Liked

Human beings are social creatures. Evolutionarily, we work best together, in which the skillsets of individual members of a group collectively make a group self sufficient to take on any adversity. And that keeps all of us alive and helps us thrive. This is, however, the best case scenario that propelled us to live in communities and help each other out by collaborating.

The corporate world of today is, of course, a different jungle with different animals. And in the competitiveness of numbers and targets and schedules, survival is dependent on relevance. And relevance can only be achieved by being the most important person in the group. That can be achieved by two ways - by being exceedingly good at your work (difficult) or sucking up to your boss (easy). Guess which is followed most of the time?

And that works because mediocre leaders want mediocre subordinates as they are threatened by exceptional employees. I have seen this in the armed forces, I have seen it in the United Nations, I have seen it in the corporate world and I have seen it in politics. As soon as a leader feels threatened because of his/her own insecurities, the axe falls on the subordinate 'making him/her feel that way.' Thus the 'need to be liked' somehow gains in momentum.

The Curse of Mediocrity

Most leaders in the corporate world are more concerned with being liked than being respected. This isn’t good for business, but it is good for average workers whose bosses are too insecure to deal with their mediocrity - and threatened by high performing subordinates.

Since I work in the field of human behaviour, I get to analyse behaviour of not only the people who I train and/or coach, but also the leaders who engage me, the HR Executives who try not to engage me, and the office runners and those at reception who usher me in. And one visit to any company tells me more about the health of the company and the prevailing patterns of behaviour even before I walk into the office of the MD/CEO for our scheduled meeting.

Most of the times, the MD/CEO are unaware of these undercurrents in the organisation and spend phenomenal amounts of time, energy and money in trainings and coaching employees on team building, communication, leadership and even something called 'executive presence' with zero or minimal changes. And that's because mediocrity is promoted in the system and employees generating excellence are treated as outliers and pushed to leave. If you are happy with the status quo, don't expect things to change.

Respect

To respect is to hold feelings of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. Focus on value creation and stay above petty stuff and popularity contests.?Be kind to everyone, deliver above and beyond expectations.?You’ll get the respect?anchored down.?Then you can work on the likeability part.

One more thing to be cautious of is to understand that being disliked is?not?the same as being respected.?Don’t assume you are respected just because everyone is afraid of you or thinks you’re an a*.?Yes, people thought Steve Jobs was an a*, but causality doesn’t run that way.?Never take pride in being disliked by those you work with.

Respect must be earned through a reputation of value creation.?It doesn’t come with titles or business cards or corner offices or degrees or years of experience.?If they don’t respect you now, they’ll respect you less when you get the promotion.?To them, you’re the same idiot but now in water even further over your head.

Conclusion

Please understand that it’s not a complete trade-off.?The best case scenario for you is to be liked and respected, which is an amazing combo.?The challenge most of the time is that the more you are liked, the better it feels in the short term and the more incentive there is to 'protect it'.?When you start worrying about protecting your reputation as 'fun' or 'nice' you can stray from what you actually do best and slip in the respect department. I have seen this happening in organisations - and even CEOs fall prey to this 'need'.

The most effective teammates and certainly the most effective leaders are liked and respected both.?One of the primary reasons they are liked is because of how respectable they are.?Likeability can grow on people.?But if you lead with being liked it doesn’t tend to morph into respect over time.

Your credibility soars when people see you doing the right thing– handling issues promptly and with confidence, and most of all, with integrity.?The secret is that when you are respected as a leader, you’ll often be liked as a byproduct. So, in the realm of caring about what people think of you, wouldn't you rather do the things that will earn the respect of your team– even if it’s not today, but a year down the road when they look back and think, 'You did the right thing.'