Sometimes it’s better to be respected and not liked than to be liked and not respected
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It’s critical that a leader must possess honesty. Not only must he or she be honest in behavior, but they must also call things as they see them. All leaders face situations in which they must figure out the right way to say something to an employee or group of employees—maybe something those people would prefer not to hear.
The easiest, and usually most successful, way to address such situations is to ignore the politics and say what you believe, using the clearest, most honest mode of communication you can put together. Too often, people try to ‘spin’ their message or couch things in a way they hope will produce a desired result. That’s quite a risk. It’s tough to be sure that your message will be interpreted by the recipient in exactly the way you want. And, if you get it wrong, you’ll be in a worse position than if you had been honest.
Trust and openness produce the best results for me
I live by this philosophy: I can either say something about the situations or stay silent. For example, if an employee charged with an assignment does not perform to my expectations, I can either tell that person or say nothing.
For sure, the best thing that I can do to prevent similar, negative situations from reoccurring is to speak out. How he or she know my expectations were not met, or know how to correct things in the future, without a clear, unambiguous communication? And while some people find such communications difficult to hear—mostly those that have committed the undesirable performance— most respond with appreciation for the honesty and the opportunity to correct course going forward.
Face up to the risks
Delivering such open, honest criticism can open you up to being labeled with less than desirable names. Yet, in a classic risk-reward trade-off, it also can lead to you being considered a clear, candid communicator. Without such communications, individuals who perform less than ideally would not be given productive, fruitful criticism; and they would not likely modify their future behavior or performance.
Besides, if poor performance and unacceptable behavior are tolerated, others in the organization will come to the conclusion that senior management doesn’t care about the quality or nature of employee performance. This belief, if allowed to fester and pervade an organization, can undermine all future prospects prospects.
Balancing it out
To ensure the best team performance and outcomes, be sure to speak clearly, openly and as honestly as you can. To me, the risk of being negatively labeled is more than offset by the rewards of overall organizational performance gain—as well as the respect which I can earn by demonstrating candor and integrity.
I think that it’s better to be respected and not liked than to be liked and not respected. I strongly encourage those around me to speak openly and candidly with a focus on overall performance. Sometimes, it may create negative feelings. But when faced with a choice between saying something to make a person aware of a problem, or not saying anything and simply hoping for some change, there’s no contest. Say what you need to say and say it as clearly as possible.
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