The Leadership Trap: Why Chasing Approval Costs More Than You Think
Many leaders confuse being liked with leading well. It's a quiet, expensive mistake — one that shows up most clearly during difficult conversations. When you're worried about whether your team approves of your decisions, you start softening your feedback, dodging hard calls, and avoiding the very conflicts that drive real growth.
It's natural to want people to like you. You spend more time with your colleagues than anyone else, including family. Those relationships shape your day-to-day experience. A 2024 Catalyst survey confirmed what anyone who's worked in aerospace or space exploration already knows: higher quality working relationships lead to better job satisfaction, higher engagement, and stronger retention. Burnout drops when people feel connected.
But for leaders — especially those navigating the high-stakes environments of NASA missions, Space.com coverage, or independent astronomy news operations — that desire for approval can quietly erode credibility. And credibility is everything when you're responsible for decisions that affect millions in funding, public trust, and sometimes, literal lives.
The Problem With Trying to Be Liked
I started my first managerial role in my early twenties. Two of my team members were only a few years younger than me, in their late teens. I felt I had more in common with them than with my much older peers. Naturally, I acted more like their friend than their manager.
Although they reported to me, they also worked closely with other managers, who weren't impressed with their performance and made their views very clear to me.
My friendships became an issue. I found myself softening colleagues' criticisms because I didn't want to come down too hard on people with whom I had become friends. But even the softer criticisms I shared landed badly with people who trusted me, seeming like a betrayal.
In the end, I disappointed both groups and learned a valuable lesson.
Perhaps it's more natural for young people at the beginning of their careers to lean towards making friends at work, but the desire to be liked can be a challenge at all levels. When we want to be liked, we tend to over-accommodate and avoid difficult conversations. People-pleasers do not necessarily make great leaders; you need to challenge and provoke people to bring out the best in them and help them discover their own potential.
This plays out especially harshly in the space industry. When you're covering breaking news for Space.com or managing a team at NPR's science desk, the pressure to be universally well-regarded can paralyze decision-making. You hesitate to push back on a source. You soften a critical edit. You avoid calling out a team member's recurring mistakes because you don't want to be "that boss."
The result? Your team loses trust in your judgment. They can sense the hesitation. And suddenly, your authority — the very thing you were trying to protect by being liked — has evaporated.
The Difference Between Being Liked and Being Likeable
Rather than seeking to be liked, leaders should focus on being likeable, according to Jenni Field, author of Nobody Believes You. Being likeable is less about popularity and more about how we show up with others — being approachable, respectful, easy to work with, and able to fit within a group without needing to be at its centre.
Field explained, "If I need to be liked, I'm focusing too much on the human need to belong and feel part of something." She argues that being likeable is a more sustainable goal, especially at work, because it allows us to build good relationships without conflating them with friendship or universal approval.
"I think leaders and managers can get stuck wanting to be liked and not wanting to upset anyone. That becomes such a governing practice that it affects your ability to make difficult decisions and hard calls."
When leaders try too hard to be liked, it can adversely affect their credibility within an organisation, precisely for these reasons. When we need to make tough choices, likeability can ensure they are more readily accepted.
Field sees likeability as part of credibility, rather than separate from it. As she explains, "If you are not likeable, if I don't even want to be around you, then I'm not going to follow or believe in you." Being likeable makes people more likely to listen to our arguments and take them seriously, rather than automatically challenging them.
Credibility relies on the respect we gain for making the right choices, not always the popular ones. People rarely follow leaders because they're popular; they follow those they trust to make good decisions.
In the context of space exploration and astronomy, this distinction matters enormously. NASA administrators who prioritize being liked over being effective risk making decisions based on political optics rather than scientific merit. Space.com editors who avoid publishing controversial but important stories to maintain broad approval compromise their journalistic integrity. NPR science reporters who hedge their coverage to avoid offending anyone dilute the public's understanding of critical issues.
How to Build Likeability Without Chasing Approval
Field suggests some simple, practical steps leaders can take to help them increase their likeability and, in turn, their credibility.
Seek Working Relationships, Not Friendships
At work, you don't need to be everybody's friend. But you do want people to feel that you are "nice to be around". Make sure you have clear boundaries so that people understand that being friendly does not mean you are their personal friend.
This is particularly relevant for teams managing complex projects at NASA or covering fast-moving stories for Space.com. You can be warm, approachable, and supportive without blurring the lines into personal territory. Set expectations early. Be clear about your role. Let people know that your friendliness isn't a promise of favoritism.
Be Self-Aware
Understand how you come across to others and the impact your engagement style has on them. This might mean adjusting the pace at which you speak, your tone of voice, your tendency to overwhelm, or simply checking that instructions have been taken on board. It also means being willing to adapt if your message isn't resonating.
Self-awareness is a superpower in leadership. It's not about being extroverted or socially fluent — it's about reading the room and adjusting accordingly. For leaders in the aerospace sector, this might mean recognizing when a team member is overwhelmed by a tight launch deadline, or when a journalist needs space to develop a story without pressure.
Invest in Small Moments
Don't try too hard to find rapport or build warmth. A cup of tea with a team member, whether through small talk or a simple check-in away from the transactional question of whether someone is doing their job effectively, can all help create connection.
Sometimes the most meaningful interactions are the smallest ones. A quick coffee break with a colleague. A genuine question about someone's weekend. A moment of appreciation for work well done. These aren't frivolous — they're the foundation of trust.
Build Trust Before Challenging
If you are fair in most of your interactions with team members, you earn the right to challenge them constructively later. Don't make every interaction a pushback; give praise and support first.
This is where many leaders stumble. They either never challenge anyone (because they want to be liked) or they challenge without building any relational capital (because they think leadership means being tough). The sweet spot is building trust through consistent fairness, then using that trust to deliver difficult feedback when it's needed.
Practicing these conversations beforehand can make a real difference. Tools like Synthesia's AI roleplay sessions now let managers rehearse tough dialogues with AI avatars that push back in real time, scoring performance on empathy, clarity, and structure — turning soft skills from a vague aspiration into something measurable.
Bring in Other Perspectives to Reduce Bias
Having 360-degree reviews and perspectives from other leaders and colleagues can mitigate any perceived personal element in disagreements or challenges.
For leaders at organizations like NPR or Space.com, this means creating structures where feedback flows in multiple directions. It means inviting colleagues to weigh in on performance discussions. It means normalizing the idea that disagreement isn't personal — it's professional.
Field's message is not that everyone must become outwardly warm or socially fluent; rather, it is that likeability can be expressed in different ways. Being "nice to be around" might mean a calm presence, a quick cup of tea, a smile, or a small effort to connect, rather than forced sociability.
You don't need everyone at work to like you. You just need to be someone they can work alongside comfortably and trust to do the right thing.
Leadership isn't about being everyone's friend. It's about becoming someone people trust, respect, and want to follow. Even when they don't always agree with you.
In the high-stakes world of aerospace, space exploration, and astronomy journalism, that trust is the currency that matters. Not popularity. Not approval. Trust.
References
Brassel, S. (2024). Team dynamics on the front line: How managers and organizations impact this overlooked key to retention. Catalyst.
Lopata, A. (2026, July 20). Stop Trying to Be Liked at Work. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/connected-leadership/202607/stop-trying-to-be-liked-at-work
