In Episode 20, ADI's Francisco Gomes, explains the latest pearl, "Managers Are Paid to Be Well-Liked."
Transcript: in the early days of ADI when Aubrey talked about the importance of leaders having strong relationships with their direct reports leaders would sometimes push back and they would say things like, "Well I'm not paid to be well-liked." Aubrey disagreed and that's how another one of his pearls of wisdom was born. He said precisely the opposite. He said, "Managers are paid to be well-liked." So what does that mean and what does being liked have to do with being a good leader? So the idea is not to win a popularity contest the idea and the key takeaway is that high performance runs on good relationships. You can't really reinforce somebody's behavior effectively if they don't like you. Why is that? In great part it's because if they don't like you then they probably don't trust you. And without trust your attempts at encouragement and your attempts at coaching are likely to fall flat or worse feel manipulative. As leaders we're constantly arranging the environment, the systems the processes the consequences the moments that influence performance. If you're not liked you lose access to one of the most powerful tools in your leadership toolkit to do that effectively which is social positive reinforcement. So yes managers are paid to be well-liked because being well-liked opens the door to being trusted and trust opens the door to true influence and therefore to high performance.
