The cost of wanting to be "liked" in leadership
and how to stop
Good morning happy Tuesday team,
Yesterday I was over at the Zoopla offices running my signature Leadership Level-Up day and as always, the conversations in the room reminded me why I love this work so much. The team are fab, 25 managers, all at different stages, all brilliant, but of course all facing different challenges.
But no matter the industry or the company size, and I hear some version of this story come up in my workshops all the time:
Someone gets promoted, they’re good at their job, they care deeply about the people around them, and honestly, that’s maybe why they got the role … Their manager saw someone who brought people together. Someone the team trusted.
And then the job starts. And almost immediately, something feels off.
They avoid the difficult conversation because they don’t want to make things awkward. They take work back from a team member rather than push back on a missed deadline. They agree in the meeting and quietly get annoyed afterwards or they say yes when every part of them wants to say no.
And they tell themselves it’s because they’re a good person. That they lead with empathy. That they’re just not the kind of leader who rules with an iron fist.
But underneath all of it, if they’re honest, is one quiet, persistent fear:
What if they don’t like me anymore?
Where it comes from
Most of us didn’t just wake up craving being ‘liked’
Somewhere along the way, being liked became proof that we belonged, and for a lot of us it started way before any job title. Families where keeping the peace just felt easier, schools where being agreeable kept you out of trouble, and then workplaces that quietly punished anyone who pushed back too hard.
Think back to the moment you first realised that being agreeable got you further than being honest. For me I think it was laughing at a joke that wasn't funny or going along with staying out late into the night drinking, because the alternative, the disappointment on someone's face when you said you wanted to go home, felt unbearable.
So we learned. We adapted. Approval felt like safety, and safety is a hard thing to walk away from even when you can see it’s holding you back.
But the very thing that makes you a genuinely good human, the fact that we care, that you feel things, that other people’s opinions actually matter to you, is the same thing that, left unchecked, chips away at your ability to lead them.
What it’s actually costing you
So it’s time we get honest about the bill here. Chasing being ‘liked’ feels easy in the moment, but it has a cost:
Your team stops growing: When you protect people from hard truths, you protect them from the feedback that would actually help them. They stay stuck. Their potential goes unrealised.
Your best people get frustrated. High performers don’t want a manager who keeps the peace at all costs. They want someone who will make the call, set the standard, and deal with the person who isn’t pulling their weight.
You carry everything. Every avoided conversation becomes a weight you carry instead. The same weight that lives in your chest on Sunday evenings.
You stop trusting yourself. You draft a message to your team, then rewrite it four times because you're not sure how it'll land.
You make a decision, then immediately wonder if you should have handled it differently.
You lie awake replaying a conversation from Tuesday.
Your instincts are still there, but you've overridden them so many times to keep others comfortable that you've stopped believing they're worth listening to.
How to stop
So what do you actually do with all of this?
I’ve watched the shift happen (in myself and in others) and it’s rarely a dramatic overnight change. It usually starts with one uncomfortable moment of honesty when you realise that by staying quiet, by keeping the peace, you haven’t been protecting anyone. You’ve been letting them down. That the approval-seeking you dressed up as empathy wasn’t really empathy at all.
I remember sitting across from someone on my team who had been struggling for months. I'd softened every piece of feedback I'd given her, told myself I was being kind, that she'd get there. But the truth was I didn't want the awkwardness. I was being a coward, softening feedback because I didn't want her to be upset with me.
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And that’s where the work began for me.
I am absolutely still a work in progress on this one. Wanting to be liked ran deep for me, and unlearning it has been one of the slower, messier parts of my own leadership journey. But here’s what I wish someone had told me earlier:
1. Get curious about the discomfort
Next time you feel the urge to soften something, avoid a conversation, or say yes when you mean no, just pause. Ask yourself: am I doing this for them, or because I can’t tolerate how it might feel?
You don’t have to change anything yet. Just notice it. The awareness alone starts to loosen the pattern’s grip.
2. Separate being respected from being liked
Write down the names of the leaders who have had the biggest impact on you and I’d bet most of them weren’t the ones who kept the peace.
They were the ones who told you the truth, held you to a standard, and made you feel like your growth actually mattered to them.
That’s the leader your team needs you to be.
3. Start small by having one conversation you’ve been avoiding
Not every conversation all at once. Just one. Pick the smallest, lowest-stakes version of something you’ve been putting off, maybe a piece of feedback, an expectation you haven’t set clearly or a boundary you’ve been tiptoeing around.
Notice that the world doesn’t end and notice how much lighter you feel afterwards. You’ll build up the evidence which will slowly replace the fear with something more useful.
So what now?
If you recognised yourself anywhere in this, I’m not asking you to become someone you’re not. The care, the empathy, the deep investment in your people, those are assets. The world needs more leaders who actually give a damn.
But caring about people and needing their approval are not the same thing. One makes you a better leader. The other makes you a hostage.
The work is learning to tell the difference.
Peace,
H
BTW - I’m hosting a free live workshop tomorrow, Wednesday 25th March at 3pm GMT / 11am EDT and I’d love to see you there.
Why your culture feels off (and how to fix it)
and if today’s newsletter hit a nerve, this is the natural next step.
Working to be liked doesn’t just affect you, over time it shapes the culture around you. Standards drift. Ownership disappears. Energy drops. And suddenly everything feels polite but not productive, and you can’t quite put your finger on why.
In this session I’ll walk you through the exact process high-performing managers use to diagnose what’s really going on in their team, reset the culture fast, and make sure it doesn’t quietly slip again.
It’s free, it’s live, and there’ll be plenty of time for questions at the end
See you there