Would You Rather Be Liked or Respected?

Today’s question is deceptively easy: would you prefer to be liked or respected?

To which you, if normally constituted, will answer that you want to be both liked and respected. End of story.

So, why does it happen that in the business world people who are merely liked are not considered to be executive material while people who are respected are.

Kate Mason writes in the Financial Times that being likeable is a backhanded compliment. It suggests that the person is non-threatening, for reasons that, quite honestly, escape me.

Wharton psychologist Adam Grant has weighed in on the side of respect, against likeability.

Mason writes:

In a work con­text, the term is fre­quently used in ref­er­ence to those not yet seen as lead­er­ship mater­ial. “Great lead­ers don’t obsess about being liked. They care about being respec­ted,” organ­isa­tional psy­cho­lo­gist Adam Grant pos­ted on LinkedIn recently. “Lik­ing is shal­low affec­tion. It comes from being pleas­ant — you bend over back­wards to accom­mod­ate oth­ers. Respect is deep regard. It’s earned by being prin­cipled — you stand up for your val­ues.”

I probably do not need to tell you, but when Mason extols the value of likeability she is promoting values associated with women. It involves being nice and being accommodating, doing what you need to do to get along with other people. But, that also means, avoiding conflict, not being too assertive, not being too threatening. 

For example, Mason writes this:

As the former prime min­is­ter of New Zea­l­and, Jacinda Ardern, said: “One of the cri­ti­cisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggress­ive enough or assert­ive enough, or maybe some­how, because I’m empath­etic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you can­not be both com­pas­sion­ate and strong.”

True enough, once upon a time Jacinda Ardern was the great feminist hope. Now, not so much. 

There is a gulf between Jacinda Ardern and Winston Churchill. I am sure you did not need me to tell you that Churchill did not succeed as prime minister because he manifested boundless empathy or because people liked him.

People respected him for leading his nation through its greatest trial, but, saying that he was likeable is quite a stretch.

That’s clearly not all. 

Mason makes the case for likeability:

The con­tra­dic­tion shows a mis­un­der­stand­ing about how we view not just like­ab­il­ity, but the range of qual­it­ies a leader should embrace. In truth, like­ab­il­ity is more com­plex than shal­low. It is the abil­ity to cre­ate teams of allies and friends, cor­ral people to your cause and build trust. When genu­ine, it can be a power­ful cur­rency.

Like­able col­leagues and man­agers are not simply com­pli­ant; they have qual­it­ies oth­ers enjoy. This is something most people will have observed in their work­ing lives. When you like someone pro­fes­sion­ally, you want to go in to bat for them and get them on your team. You want to pro­mote them, work harder for them, or give them big­ger oppor­tun­it­ies.

This feels overly optimistic. Whatever does it mean to say that others enjoy your qualities. 

In truth, being a good teammate has little to do with being likeable. You become a good teammate by putting on the uniform, observing the grooming code, playing by the rules, following insstructions and placing the good of the team ahead of your personal interests. 

Moreover, being a good teammate means performing the tasks that contribute to team success. If the player cannot hit a fastball you are not going to use him as a pinch hitter because you like him.