Magnetic at Work: Why it matters to be liked

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Alongside the launch of her new book, How To Be Magnetic, psychology educator and Fora member Francesca Tighinean is sharing her tips for building stronger relationships at work. For the second in our series, we explore the role of likeability.
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Browse through corporate think pieces and LinkedIn essays and you’ll come across a familiar mantra: it’s nice to be liked, but it’s better to be respected. Many leadership commentators will tell you that trying hard to be liked can distract you from achieving professional goals and even be a sign of weakness. The key, they say, is to focus on building respect, not personal bonds.

But what if the two go hand in hand? What if being likeable is fundamental to earning support from others and progressing in your career?

Francesca Tighinean, author of How To Be Magnetic: The Science of Charisma, Attraction and Human Connection, is a strong believer in workplace likeability and has the research to support her thinking. When we caught up for the next edition of our Magnetic at Work series, she explained why we connect with some colleagues, and how you can build strong relationships without being a people-pleaser.

“If someone was strongly disliked, their competence barely mattered because people avoided working with them.”
Francesca TighineanPsychology expert, author and Fora member

“We connect with people who seem to enjoy our company. Psychologists call this the reciprocity of liking: we like people who like us.”

Why do we naturally connect with some people and not others?

Francesca: A big part of this is how warm someone is towards us. In a study by Dufner and Krause, warm behaviour was more than twice as strongly linked to being liked as confident, leading behaviour.

Essentially, we connect with people who seem to enjoy our company. Psychologists call this the reciprocity of liking: we like people who like us.

In a classic study by Curtis and Miller, people who were led to believe a stranger liked them became warmer, more open and more agreeable in conversation – and the stranger ended up liking them more in return.

Interestingly, research on the ‘liking gap’ by Erica Boothby and colleagues found that after talking to strangers, people consistently underestimated how much the other person liked them. In other words, you’re probably better liked than you think, so there’s little to lose by being warm first.

Can you build strong relationships without becoming a people-pleaser?

Francesca: Yes, and the research suggests that people-pleasing can actually make relationships weaker. Andrea Abele's study shows that how we judge people socially has two parts: warmth, which is being friendly and caring, and morality, which is being honest, fair and reliable. People-pleasing focuses entirely on warmth and quietly sacrifices honesty, because you say yes when you mean no and agree when you don't.

The issue is that honesty matters more. Research by Goodwin, Piazza and Rozin found that across most situations, people care more about someone's moral character than their warmth when forming an impression of them. In Dagley and Gaskin's study, acting on your values was mentioned by 97% of participants and rated the most important characteristic of executive presence.

So, the strongest relationships combine warmth and honesty. You can care deeply about someone and still tell them what you really think, and they'll usually trust you more because of it.

“Don't wait to be welcomed, be the welcomer.”

What's one simple way to become more likeable at work?

Francesca: Think about how you act around someone you already know and trust, then bring a little more of that version of yourself into new relationships.

When we meet someone new, it’s easy to become more self-conscious. We might monitor our body language, overthink what we’re saying or try a little too hard to make a good impression, which can have the opposite effect. When warmth feels forced or turns into people-pleasing, others can pick up on the lack of authenticity.

Instead, think about how you behave with a close friend or sibling. How relaxed is your body language? How quickly do you speak? What kinds of questions do you ask? The idea isn’t to manufacture familiarity, but to bring more of that relaxed, open version of yourself into the conversation.

Going a little deeper can help, too. Rather than sticking entirely to surface-level conversation, ask questions that give someone the opportunity to share more about themselves.

Talking in this way helps people feel included, and Dr Julie Smith has a brilliant line on that: ‘don't wait to be welcomed, be the welcomer.’ In almost any meeting or event, most people are quietly waiting to feel accepted. The most likeable people don't wait – they provide it.

Ultimately, being likeable isn’t about performing the right version of yourself. It’s about dropping some of the social mask, showing genuine curiosity and letting people meet the more relaxed version of you.

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