The desire to be a popular boss is a trap. Prioritizing being liked often means avoiding boundaries and tough feedback, which creates an unsafe, unproductive environment. Leadership requires earning respect by providing clear direction, setting standards, and trusting your team—which is what they actually value.
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A leader's desire to be liked can lead to a lack of candor, which is ultimately cruel. Avoiding difficult feedback allows underperformance to fester and makes an eventual firing a shocking surprise. This damages trust more than direct, consistent, and tough conversations would have.
Most managers fail at feedback by avoiding conflict. A better framework combines three elements: toughness (directly confronting the problem), kindness (offering support to improve), and clarity (defining specific actions and the potential positive outcome).
The most selfish thing a leader can do is withhold feedback because giving it would be uncomfortable. In that moment, you are optimizing for your own comfort at the expense of your colleague's growth. High-performance teams require radical candor, which is fundamentally an unselfish act.
Being a "nice" boss often means pleasing the majority and avoiding conflict. True kindness in leadership involves toughness—holding high standards and having difficult conversations because you have your team's best interests at heart. Kindness is about betterment, not just being liked.
A leader's failure to deliver difficult feedback, even with good intentions, doesn't protect employees. It fosters entitlement in the underperformer and resentment in the leader, leading to a toxic dynamic and an inevitable, messy separation. True kindness is direct, constructive feedback.
A common pitfall for new managers is seeking validation by being liked. A great leader's role is to provide constructive challenges and uncomfortable feedback, which fosters genuine growth and ultimately earns the team's gratitude and respect.
Peets warns against leaders who are universally beloved by their teams. He believes effective leadership requires conflict to drive performance. A leader focused on being popular will avoid tough conversations and decisions, ultimately failing the team. Respect, not likability, is the crucial trait.
The transition from manager to director requires a shift from managing tactical details to 'directing.' A director's value comes from high-level strategy, cross-departmental resource connection, and solving organizational problems, not from knowing more than their direct reports.
Newly promoted directors often fall into the trap of "hero syndrome," trying to solve every problem themselves as they did as individual contributors. True leadership requires letting go, redirecting stakeholders to your team, and finding satisfaction in their success, not your own visibility and praise.
Many leaders are candid in broad strokes but fail to have direct, difficult conversations with individuals they personally like. This avoidance stems from a desire not to hurt feelings but inevitably leads to underperformance and greater problems down the line.