This Stanford Psychologist’s 90-10 Rule Will Make You an Instantly Better Leader
How do you balance the desire to be liked with the need to be respected? Organizational psychologist Bob Sutton has a handy rule for leaders.
Maybe you have heard the old leadership saw that “it’s better to be respected than liked.” It sounds sensible. But there are a couple of problems with this common leadership advice.
One, all people, even hard-charging leaders, are wired to seek others’ approval. Which makes being able to stomach their dislike, even when it’s in the service of some higher aim, one of the most common leadership challenges. Just ask this top VC, who’s worked with many newbie CEOs.
Second, this saying may be pithy, but that means it’s also vague. It’s handy to know that you valuing respect over good will make you a better leader. But how do you put that into action?
Recently, Stanford organizational psychologist and author Bob Sutton (his book The No Asshole Rule is a classic) offered a simple rule that can help leaders overcome both these hurdles and better balance the need to be liked with the imperative to sometimes ruffle feathers.
Why so many leaders struggle with people pleasing
“You’re probably pretty disagreeable people,” Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison once joked to an audience of founders. “You wouldn’t have become entrepreneurs if you weren’t.”
Entrepreneurs may be famously independent, but they’re still human. As a social species, humans evolved to care about what other people think about them. For most of history, we relied on each other for survival. Not getting along with your group greatly increases your chances of getting eaten by a lion.
Which is why, even if you pride yourself on your independent streak, part of you almost certainly still strives for likability. That’s natural and good. My Inc.com colleague Jeff Haden has rounded up a ton of science showing that being nice actually helps you in many areas of life. (Research also shows that niceness is generally a sign of intelligence.)
But there is still definitely such a thing as being too likeable.
According to a variety of coaches and executives, leaders who are too focused on being liked avoid giving critical negative feedback, overpromise to customers and colleagues, and withhold valuable but unpopular information and opinions. Being inauthentic about your feelings to keep others happy also often backfires, causing others to lose trust in you.
Unsurprisingly, all this is generally bad for business. It can also be bad for your mental and physical health. People pleasing can make you overwhelmed, resentful, or ethically compromised. Doctors have warned that you can make yourself physically ill by repressing your negative emotions for others’ benefit.
Be a better leader with the 90-10 Rule
Which suggests that being nice and popular are worthy goals, but being too agreeable will hurt you. Where do you draw the line? Bob Sutton recently gave his handy answer to that question during an episode of Adam Grant’s Re:Thinking podcast. You can think of it as the 90-10 Rule.
“There’s a quote from my late father-in-law that ‘I have a long list of friends and a short list of enemies, and I’m equally proud of both lists,’” Sutton tells Grant. “That’s kind of my philosophy.”
Having no enemies is probably a sign you are a people pleaser who is reluctant to take principled stands and share hard-to-hear truths. On the other hand, if everyone seems to think you’re a jerk (or even if you think everyone else is a jerk), you are probably actually a jerk.
What’s the right ratio of admirers to critics? You guessed it, Sutton aims to have roughly 90 percent of people like him and accepts that 10 percent — “who exploit people, they’re takers, or they’re a**holes” — are not going to be his biggest fans.
What’s your ratio?
Keeping this ratio in mind can help you handle the inevitable emotional toll of upsetting people and taking risks, Grant point out: “When someone gets upset with you, you can just say, ‘all right, well that’s in the 10 percent for this year.”
It’s also a good test of whether you’re an excessive people pleaser. If you’re a leader, pause right now and mentally run through a list of the people you deal with day to day. How many like you? How many think you’re difficult, self-righteous, pushy, inflexible, or otherwise a pain in the neck?
The answer doesn’t have to be exactly 90 percent of people for the first question, and 10 percent for the second. But if your answer is wildly off from that — say, if absolutely everyone thinks you’re a sweetheart or two-thirds of co-workers are praying for your departure — chances are you’re not getting the balance between likeability and respect right.
Sutton’s 90-10 Rule isn’t an exact target to aim for, but it’s a pretty good indication of whether you’re grappling with one of the more common leadership challenges.
Source: https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/this-stanford-psychologists-90-10-rule-will-make-you-an-instantly-better-leader/91108218
