Being Respected vs Being Liked
Most people strive to be liked by their peers throughout their lives. If you think back to primary school days, you can more than likely recollect wanting to be liked by someone. It is basic human nature to want people to like you, but as you grow older, you realise that this is less important, provided you have your core friends and family in your inner circle.
In the workplace, you are thrown into the melting pot of different people, cultures, ages, ideals, interests. Being liked is not as easy as it was when you were younger, but it also isn’t as important. Within the workplace we want to be taken seriously in our roles, we want to be seen as building blocks of the business and we want to grow with every possible opportunity.
Throughout this process, you cannot choose who will like you. But you can act in a way that is respectful and that earns respect. In essence, being liked is something beyond your control, but being respected is something that we make ourselves worthy of. Being liked and being respected are not mutually exclusive. You can be liked and respected at the same time. The age-old cliché “respect is earned” is true, whereas being liked comes as a natural human response.
Perhaps in order to be liked more, you agree with people out of necessity, rather than choice so that you maintain friendships and don’t rock the boat. While this might make you seem like a likeable person, you aren’t being entirely authentic, and you possibly won’t be respected as much as a person who speaks their mind.
If you are true to your human values, true to your upbringing, your morals and the ways that you think business should be done, you are respectful of yourself and all the attributes that make you whole. This is 100% within your control. Once you show your respect for yourself by being true to yourself, you earn the respect of others.
If you act in accordance with your true capacity in the workplace, you will make decisions that some might agree with. If you stand by them without trying to act in a way to please everyone, and you can clearly validate your reasons for taking the action you did, you will earn respect of your peers. Maybe not all of them, but some of them.
A person who makes difficult, unpopular decisions, and stands by them isn’t acting out of fear of not being liked. They are acting in the best interests of the business and in accordance with their beliefs. It doesn’t bother them that they might be ostracized for making an unpopular decision. This type of behaviour can earn respect as much as it can attract criticism, but if you respect yourself and stand true to what you believe in, you won’t be worried by the criticism.
Photo by Tamarcus Brown on Unsplash