Nobody Believes You: The Role of Likeability in Leadership S5 EP5

In this fifth episode of Season 5, Jenni Field emphasises the importance of likeability as a crucial practice for credible leadership. She explains what likeability entails, debunks common misconceptions, and highlights the chaos that can ensue without it, including people not agreeing with your direction or intentionally working against it.

Jenni also shares insights and real-life examples, as well as practical strategies to build likeability through explaining the ‘why,’ being positive with realism, and showing curiosity!

Episode Timestamps:

What is important to think about when it comes to this practice is the fact that being likeable isn’t the same as being liked. We don’t need to be liked to succeed. And actually if we can detach from that need itself, that need to be liked, that’s what will help us succeed as a leader. If we don’t make that detachment, then our decision making will be impacted and our ability to have some of the really difficult conversations will also be impacted. – Jenni Field

Key Takeaways From This Episode:

Thank you for listening! 

Keep the conversation going, ask questions and share your thinking by joining the Redefining Communications community, and connecting with Jenni on LinkedIn, Instagram and X(Twitter).

Important Links & Mentions: 

Transcript for this podcast

Welcome to this episode of redefining comms with me jenny field. Today, I’m going to be talking about the importance of likability as a practice when it comes to being a credible leader now in this episode i’m going to talk about what likability is, the chaos that comes from not having it and i’ll share a couple of stories in there as well as some ways to build it. 

Now it’s important to understand that being likable is one of the most uncomfortable practices of credibility. So, if you’re hearing this as one of the eight and you’re not too sure about it i can completely understand why so let’s dive into what likability really is and why it’s often confused with being a bit of a popularity contest.

What is likability?

Well if you’re likable quite simply people like being around you, that’s it. Being likable is not the same as being liked. It’s not a popularity contest, but it’s impossible to be a credible leader if you are truly altogether unlikable. 

When we look at the practice of likability, we’re talking about people agreeing with your approach, liking being around you, and the light-hearted approach you might bring to the challenge. When we talk about it as a practice, we often talk about things like charisma and that light-heartedness that comes with being likable. 

Now, when I was working with Rob, who is the managing director of an agency, he’d sort of grown up through the organisation and was new into a leadership position. And I remember working with him quite early on, and he just said, “I want everyone to like me.” And that so often happens when you’re in a leadership position, especially if you’ve been promoted up through the team, because you want to continue with the relationships that you might have established, and you have been friends with a lot of people for a long time. And we have this need to be liked, which we’ll explore a bit more. 

But when you’re leading in any leadership capacity, not everyone will like you. Your leadership style won’t be for everyone, and it shouldn’t be. Because actually, if you’re too likable and everyone thinks you’re great, the chances are that actually your credibility rating will be lower than others, because you can’t be everything to everyone. And if you try, you’ll just end up being nothing to anyone, and no good comes of that when you’re trying to lead people. 

What is important to think about when it comes to this practice is the fact that being likable isn’t the same as being liked. We don’t need to be liked to succeed and actually if we can detach from that need itself that needs to be liked and that’s what will help us succeed as a leader. If we don’t make that detachment then our decision making will be impacted and our ability to have some of the really difficult conversations will also be impacted. 

Now, I’ve touched on the fact that we all want to be liked generally it’s very much part of being a human being we want to be accepted by a group and that acceptance is hardwired into our brains from a really early age partly because we’re dependent on others for our survival from the day we’re born and that need means that we want to be part of something included and we rely on others it’s that need that drives our need to be liked and that’s what can ultimately let us down as leaders.

Can I be a credible and unlikeable leader?

Now, the truth is that you can’t be a credible leader and be unlikable. So even if you think about people who have come across as credible, it’s their likability that’s driven that. Even if we think about some of the greatest con artists in history like Charles Ponzi or Anna Delvey from “Inventing Anna” (that was a series on Netflix), some of these people were able to get people to follow them purely because they were likable. They had charisma, they had charm, so people would follow them, but they lacked all of the other qualities of a credible leader. And that’s why it didn’t last. That’s why it’s not a long-term solution. 

So we can’t ignore likability, but we have to understand the nuance of it and what it really means, and also how it links with the other practices with credibility in order to be seen as a truly credible leader.

What’s the chaos that happens if you don’t have likability? 

Well, when you’re not likable, people just won’t agree with you. They’ll want to go off in different directions, and we really want people to be aligned to what we’re doing and where we’re going. If you lack likability, that’s going to be much harder to do.

Now, if we talk about that alignment piece, which I’ve talked about a lot in organisations and the importance of it, when we talk about the alignment of employees going in a direction, that’s about people agreeing that way forward. It’s agreeing on the direction, on the results, and that’s really important because that’s what we want people to be doing. They won’t be doing that if you are unlikable.

Now, the chaos that you might see might be things like people wasting time on projects because they’re not supporting what you’re trying to achieve. They might not understand what’s happening because they have, and they’re not really spending time with you because of the now. 

The chaos you might see will be people wasting time on projects and initiatives. People might not know why they’re doing the work, but they also might be deliberately spending time on other projects because they don’t agree with what you’re trying to do. They might be intentionally going down a route of sabotage, and that’s really dangerous if we haven’t built those relationships based on the elements of likability.

How do we build it as a practice

Well, we have to think about three things but we have to remember that being likable comes down to a light-hearted approach, having charisma, and also being agreeable. So that’s what we’re looking at when it comes to likability. So, when we’re looking to build that with those that we lead, we have to think of three things. 

1. Explaining why. 

For people to agree with your plan and where you want to go, and understand that they need to know why you’re doing what you’re doing, this helps us align everything into one direction. So, make sure that you’re spending time to explain the why behind the actions.

2. Being positive with realism. 

Now, I’m not here for toxic positivity, which was doing the rounds a few years ago. This is about having a positivity but not necessarily attached to any external factor and grounded in realism. We can’t be positive and in a make-believe world. So, we have to have some sense of people being able to see what’s going forward, how we can be real about what’s coming. But we can be positive with that. If we’re continually negative, that makes it very difficult for people to agree with us, like us, and follow us.

3. Be curious. 

You know, if people are sort of agreeing with you, they’re seeing that charisma in you, that likability factor. We want them to see that you have an interest in what they’re saying, you’re asking questions, you’re taking notes, you’re interested in them, you’re present with them, you’re in the space with them. 

Those are the things that you want to look at to make sure that people are seeing that likability practice for you to be that credible leader that people want to follow.

Thank you for listening!

Now, if you want to find out more about the research or take our online Credibility Gap Assessment or find out more about the book. You can access all of that information in the link in the show notes. 

In the next episode, we will look at the practice of something else. In the next episode, we will look at the practice of being a supportive leader, what that means, why it’s an important part of credibility, and of course how to build it.

Thank you for listening, and if you haven’t already, please do join my community by subscribing to my mailing list. All of the details are in the show notes.