Stephanie Smith

How you behave when you’re at the top matters. It trickles down to your staff, how they treat customers and clients and ripples out from there. I have learned my authentic self gravitates toward something I’ve dubbed Likable Leadership.

In my idea of Likable Leadership, how you behave matters in how your people perform and for your own psyche.

As a woman who grew up in the South, I learned to sugar coat everything I say and to always be polite and demure. But I worked in Manhattan for many years, and that is not how I saw people behave and get to the top. It was cutthroat. And it was dog eat dog. It was difficult for me to navigate workplace politics for a long time. I hate to admit it, but it both geographies it was equally tough.

These are both stereotypes, but it seems like Southerners will stab you in the back, but smile to your face. They’ll never really tell you what they’re thinking.

Northerners tell you exactly what they think of you with little regards for your feelings. There’s no sugar coating anything above the Mason-Dixon line.

How can you be your authentic self in either situation? How can you marry your overly polite upbringing and still make it in a tough business world?

I decided to embrace both sides of my personality. And to be true to myself.

Are you also somewhere between Pollyanna and Miranda Priestly?
What about Fezziwig or Scrooge?
Who do you lean more toward?

I started managing a team at 28 years old. First a team of three… then five, then 10, then 12, then eventually I had 45 direct reports by the time I was 40… which I don’t recommend! Now I have 10, which feels much more doable.

I’m a storyteller at heart. So I’m going to tell you three stories about my time observing leadership and being a leader.

Story #1. We’ve all had one of these.

If you haven’t had a boss that makes you want to cry and causes your hair to fall out, then you’ve probably had a client that fits the bill.

When I got one of my first big editor-in-chief jobs, my boss was a terror. The turnover in our department was the highest I’d ever seen. One time I saw someone leave after two weeks. They had moved to the city from out of state for the job too. It was that bad. They just said, “I can’t do this and left.” At one point, our team had worked 32 days in a row (weekends too) without a break.

This boss used to stand behind me and dictate what to type in an email to be meaner than she thought I was being too nice. Screaming at people over email and intimidating them behind text messages was her favorite thing to do.

Inevitably if the email I sent was too mean/rude then I had to figure out how to soften the next email to get what I really needed from the person. Or call them on the side and explain the pressure I was getting from my higher up to be tough.

I’ve been told in my career many times that if you want to be in charge, if you want to be a CEO, the editor-in-chief, a Vice President, a director, (whatever the title!) you have to get used to people not liking you.

And maybe that’s true in making hard decisions, but I have found it’s not true if you want to get the best work out of people. Day in and day out, don’t behave that way if you want to inspire the most loyalty and have staff that enjoys showing up to work to do their job.

I want my staff to enjoy being around me. Not to be afraid of me. I’ve had to fire people, of course. And reprimand people. I’ve had to PIP people. But there’s always a way to do it with their dignity and compassion at the forefront and let them walk out not dreading their next step in life.

My question is how many of you (men and women) have felt like you had to be mean, or really tough at the top or people would take advantage of you? That people would walk all over you?

It’s not true.

Contrary to popular belief, fear isn’t the strongest motivator.

In fact, 81 percent of respondents to Glassdoor’s Employee Appreciation Survey said they’re motivated to work harder when their boss shows appreciation for their work. In contrast, only 38 percent said they work harder when their boss is demanding. Just 37 percent said they work harder because they fear losing their job.

But I can tell you I’ve worked for both kinds of bosses, and I work much better and harder when I don’t want to disappoint you. Because I like you. I am loyal to you. It’s called Likable Leadership.

Story #2. Culture is contagious.

Over the years, I learned something from going to a ton of leadership and company conferences.

Everything comes from top down. Great people on the bottom rarely can manage up, no matter how hard they try. It doesn’t work.

So if you’re in a leadership position, it is ON YOU to create the culture. No one else. And if the people above you are terrible or don’t care about culture, then you create it for those under you. I once equated it to being Atlas. I have held the negativity of the people above me from crushing the people who reported directly to me.

It reminds me of working in the live events industry. How you behave at an event you are in charge of trickles down to the people working the event, those attending, how the speakers and educators feel and more.

I had one boss who before each live event would get us all in a room and say “Is everything going to go perfect at the show? No. I expect a few things to go wrong, but it’s how we handle them that matters.”

He also used the Southwest Airlines method: He gave people the latitude to do something nice for people if they felt it was needed (i.e. bring them to the front of the line, give them an extra drink ticket or a ticket to a meet ’n’ greet to cheer them up). He assured us one or two people are going to be upset… and they’re usually the same people every time. Don’t take it personally. Do something nice for them. Kill them with kindness.

He was likable in that moment. And he gave us the permission and directive to be likable as well.

Culture can happen by default or you can define it.

The thing is, everyone thinks culture is someone else’s job. It’s not. It’s yours as a leader. Likable Leadership means your department or division may have deadlines, big projects and lots of other things going on, but you need to stop and focus on culture often.

Some old school bosses I’ve had from a different generation believe culture doesn’t matter to the bottom line. It’s a frou-frou thing in their eyes. But that’s wrong in my Likable Leadership world. Here, there’s a return on culture.

1. Trader’ Joes is #1 on culture and #1 in the space
2. Southwest Airlines has 46 years of profitability.
3. Chick-Fil-a dominates their space and puts huge emphasis on culture.

Have you ever worked in a company where you felt special and appreciated and it made you want to do better work?

How many of you had one too many negative encounters with higher ups and swore you’d never be back or work another day for those jerks again?

As a likable leader, you have to give the parameters and guard rails of culture to your team and then let them operate within them. Give them the leeway to fix problems as they see them in their own way.

I know there are great leaders like Howard Schultz from Starbucks, John Mackey from Whole Foods, Jeff Weiner from LinkedIn that their teams love them. (Eek, I wish I had more anecdotal evidence of women leaders. Drop some names of faves in the comments below, please!)

I don’t think you have to be scary to be a leader and sometimes we are told that. And for people who want to be liked by their peers and direct reports, it’s probably in their DNA. Being a kind or compassionate person can be something that puts them off from taking leadership positions or stepping out in front to lead a team. They’ve been told those jobs are for tough or meaner people.

At a job I had in magazines in New York, my boss told me I was being too nice on the phone and I needed to be tougher. This boss wanted it to feel more difficult to get ahold of them. My niceness was not giving this boss the exclusiveness and ivory tower they wanted portrayed to outside world. Later, I realized how insane it was they wanted me to be meaner so they looked more important.

Story #3 – It’s OK if you want to be liked.

I had an editor-in-chief at Self magazine, Lucy Danziger. She was so well-liked. I like to think she was a lot like me. She was into Likable Leadership early on. And I think she wanted to be liked by her team. So she would go out of her way to give gifts when people did things well, she was cheerful, jovial and approachable in the hallways. Whereas if you see famous movies like “The Devil Wears Prada,” there are people hopping out of elevators to avoid Miranda Priestly because they’re frightened of riding an elevator with her for even a few minutes.

With Lucy, I got to sit outside of her office and see how she behaved and I think when I look back, she allowed me to be my true self when I took over as a leader because she was always her true self. I am very grateful for that.

So I want to model what I call Likable Leadership for my employees wherever I go. And I hope that they respond to it, that it’s successful in the company I work for now and also that those employees take on Likable Leadership wherever they go in their careers.

My goal is to model behavior for them for their next step and the step after that and, hopefully, they choose leaders that also respect them and treat them well.

I believe the biggest benefit and boon of being a likable leader is that people want to follow you.

Get honest with yourself. If people are quitting. If they tell you there’s a morale problem or burn out or they’re not being heard… take them seriously.

If you are having problems with your teams. These are steps to improve and become a more Likable Leader:

1. Find creative ways to motivate your team.
2. Communicate. And often. In fact, over communicate.
3. Make them feel like they are part of something.
   Let them know their efforts are appreciated.
4. Acknowledge good performance.
   Then you create a culture where people feel acknowledged and heard.
   Being stingy with your compliments is not the way to lead.

In as many ways as you can, be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.

Know that however you are behaving is not only effecting your teams, but your work and bottom line.

In the comments, I’d love for you to share some stories about how you had bosses that were tough or terrible and how it effected your performance. Also, let me know where you are on the spectrum between Pollyanna and Miranda Priestly?

Also, if you’re lucky enough to work at a place that does any kind of leadership or self improvement then take the class. Because leadership is like parenting, there’s no required classes. Whether you get bad or good role models, you’ll learn something either way.

I know for a fact you can learn just as much from a bad boss as a good one.