140. Other People's Acceptance

Leaders can't be liked by everybody

For the first 35 years of my life, I wanted everybody to like me. That was my engine - to be liked. Other people’s acceptance was how I judged myself.

My biggest stress lay in the here-say that somebody didn’t think I was a super special fellow. I would fret about what I did, when I did it and how I could make things better so the disliker disliked their disliking and reliked me again.

Then, around my 35th birthday, something clicked. I came to realize that my value is not in other people’s acceptance of me, but in my acceptance of myself.

In retrospect, the solution seems obvious, but it’s always easy to see the fallacies of our yesterdays from the vantage point of tomorrow.

To be clear, I still would like people to like me, but if they don’t, I usually don’t really care all that much.

Leaning-In To Your Strengths

After more than a few decades of trips around the sun, many of us come to understand the things in which we excel and the areas in which we don’t.

If you have 15+ years of experience putting on athletic events or building widgets or knitting foofy sweaters for foofy dogs, you can most likely see when less experienced folks are making mistakes faster than they will see it themselves.

I am fortunate to have honed my understanding of leadership best practices over the past decades. Because of that, I am able to quickly assess a person’s leadership strengths and weaknesses. In understanding those traits, I can predict a company’s culture and future trajectory. It usually comes easy to me.

Not everybody likes or agrees with my insights in this arena. And not everybody will agree with what you have to say within your expertise.

The fact of the matter is that you can’t force somebody to change when they are not ready and open to do so. The donkey just ain’t gonna budge if he doesn’t want to move in that direction.

No matter how friendly and authentically you present it, instructing others how they can improve will only work if they have a desire to do so.

Turning Your Back On Other People’s Acceptance

Back when I was starved for other people’s acceptance, I used to want to fix things for everybody. I wanted them to be ecstatic that I helped them and impressed that I knew how. But sometimes people just don’t want to be fixed.

Leaders can’t fix everything. Nor should they try.

Leaders can’t be liked by everybody. Nor should they try.

Herein lies my big takeaway for us all.

Sometimes it’s ok for people to not like you. It’s ok for you to speak your mind and talk from your strengths. If they don’t want to listen, that’s ok. If they don’t want to like you, that’s fine too.

Sometimes it’s better to just walk away and let others fail.

As the saying goes:

If you live for people’s acceptance, you will die from their rejection.

Is there a situation you’re in where this can apply? Let me know.