Good morning.
Do you have to be liked to be a good leader?
Well, that’s a debate a few leaders just had on X (formerly Twitter). My colleague Eleanor Pringle chronicled an X thread posted on Aug. 23 between Spotify CEO and cofounder Daniel Ek, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk, and Shark Tank star and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
It was sparked by Ek’s post about his "guiding motto," a quote by George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
“I am not sure about other entrepreneurs, but for me being unreasonable is a difficult thing,” Ek wrote. “Like many others, I struggle with wanting to be liked.”
The other CEOs took turns weighing in. Some agreed and others disagreed with Ek’s sentiment. “I have overcome the desire to be liked,” Musk quipped in his reply. You can read all about it here.
So, does being a likable leader still matter?
“Did it ever really matter?” Edith Hamilton, a CFO executive coach, and founder of NEXT New Growth, tells me. “Only to the extent that you need to win over your peers and members of the board, and avoid disincentivizing your team. My experience as an executive coach is that some leaders are pre-wired to want to go out of their way to please, while for others this is not the driving force.”
“There are certain universal traits or behaviors that are often associated with being ‘likable,’” says Nicole Price, CEO of Lively Paradox, a professional coaching business.” A long list includes “a good communicator, genuine, funny, considerate, respectful,” Price says. However, she had found that “chief among the likability traits is empathy—understanding and sharing the feelings of another, being compassionate,” Price says.
“Instead of telling people that being a likable leader still matters, I prefer to ask people to think of their favorite three leaders,” she explains. “Then I ask them to give me at least 10 characteristics of that person that epitomizes why they chose that leader as their favorite.”
A likable leader does help attract talent to a company, according to Hamilton. “It comes across as being a leader with very high emotional intelligence,” who can make others feel safe, as opposed to a hard, charging leader, she explains. “The CFOs and other C-level executives I coach are absolutely drawn to a CEO who seems to have those hallmarks,” she says.
'It goes beyond mere charm'
But we’re in a time where stakeholders and customers are increasingly holding company leadership accountable, and using social media is one of the quickest ways to do so. Surely even likable leaders find this dynamic challenging.
“C-suite leaders often grapple with the balance between being likable and driving high-performance teams,” Price says. "Likability goes beyond mere charm,” she explains. “It's a nuanced blend of empathy, clarity, accountability, and genuine connection.”
Hamilton shares a similar perspective. “Leaders who have a strong drive to be liked or to please others absolutely need to balance it with three other leadership behaviors,” she says. They need a clear articulation of their values, be able to balance the drive for likability with a clear set of guiding principles, and also consistency and predictability—”Say what you mean, and mean what you say, and don’t shy away from following through,” Hamilton says.
So, what’s your take? Should leaders be concerned about whether or not they’re liked? Send me an email.
Have a good weekend.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
