Is your desire to be liked by your team causing problems in your business?
As a business leader, the desire to be liked by your team is often problematic. Here is why…
When your desire to be liked outweighs your desire to be respected and get results, you are less likely to do the things you need to do as a leader to make sure your team is executing well and is held accountable to move the business forward.
Let’s say you have a team member that is just not following through, or maybe they don’t have the attention to detail that you expect. If you are worried about wanting to be liked, your focus is on how that staff member will feel if you have to have a tough conversation with them about their performance.
For more information about How To Have A Crucial Conversation check out my video for more details.
When something is uncomfortable or you are worried about hurting someone’s feelings, it is more likely you will procrastinate on that conversation or you might just brush it under the rug, hoping it will go away, because you don't want to deal with it.
But guess what? That is an inward focus. You are too worried about wanting to be liked and feeling uncomfortable and that the staff member will also be uncomfortable receiving the feedback and assume that it will damage the relationship.
When we project, we are putting our own belief systems on other people. Just because you are uncomfortable doesn’t mean they feel the same way. They may really value that conversation. They may not realize that they are not doing a great job or their lack of follow-through is really critical.
You are doing them a disservice by not being open, honest, upfront, clear, and direct with them about how they are doing.
If you need to be liked, you are more likely to not deal with things as effectively as if you want to be respected and drive results, which means there will be slack.
That means that more is going to come back to your plate, which is going to take up more of your time, more firefighting, and take you away from focusing on market-facing activities and business growth opportunities.
You will feel the weight of carrying too much and being the one to put out fires when what you should be doing is focusing on business growth and doing what is more strategic.
When you are focused on respect, you are not going to delay. You will have a conversation with a team member who is not pulling their weight.
You will be clear, concise, and pleasant with them. You will be direct, and let them know that the behavior needs to change, it is not what you are looking for, it is not what you committed to, and it is not something that can persist.
Talk with them about how it will change, what is the plan. Include accountability and follow-up to see how they are doing. It doesn't have to be adversarial it just needs to be clear and direct.
You can still be pleasant, you can still be liked as long as you command respect; you are doing what you say you are going to do, you are walking the talk.
Something else about congruence: people respect people who follow through. If you say you will do something, do it. Otherwise, do NOT say it.
It is more damaging to say we will do something and then not do it. Of course, we are human, we all miss targets from time to time, but as a general rule, you need to walk the talk and do what you say you will do. This means follow-up with them, hold them accountable. This will reinforce the importance of meeting their commitments.
If you are focused on being liked, you are likely a little bit too easygoing and let things go a little bit too loose which is going to create all kinds of issues for you. Instead, if you stay focused on being respected and driving results, people will value that. They will value the communication they have with you.
They will know that you are not to be messed with, they are going to take action, they are going to meet their commitments, and the business is going to be stronger as a result.
By the way, you are not alone. If you feel like you focus on wanting to be liked a little bit too much, many business owners struggle with this issue, the good news is it is not an impossible thing to fix.
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