Lachlan Holmes

Write down your primary goals as an engineering manager. If one of them is “to be liked,” or words to that effect, you’re doing it wrong.

Your job is to get results for the business. To get stuff done. As an engineering manager, this means providing direction and motivation, removing roadblocks and pain points, and ensuring great communication in the team you are managing and among peers and departments. All in a sustainable way. Bonus points if you improve any of these areas.

Perhaps you have an alternate set of goals: communication and motivation might come under the heading of culture, or collaboration and teamwork. Not different, just variations on a theme.

But there is no explicit mention of being likeable. Of course, we want to be liked. It can make any one of your job demands easier, or be a part of fostering a fun work environment. It’s also important to always be considerate of people’s feelings, and maintain positive relationships with your colleagues, reports, and bosses. But while it can be helpful, being likeable shouldn’t be a primary goal. If it is, you will find yourself making poor decisions and avoiding necessary conflict.

I once encountered intense resistance when I asked my teams to not use their laptops during sprint planning meetings. It was a large and diverse group, and some people wanted to code or surf when colleagues from other teams were speaking. Rather than acquiesce, I went back to the purpose of the request: making meetings more effective. When the conversation was framed around our actual goals, we were able to jointly decide on an optimal solution—mandate a representative from each group to attend, and include an open invitation for everyone else. This resulted in the lead from each team attending the meetings as well as an aspiring lead. Everyone was highly engaged, the meetings were shorter, and no one used electronic devices. Trying to make everyone happy can mean an ineffective compromise, or not reaching a decision at all. After you have consulted with any subject matter experts, don’t be afraid to make a call and move on. Certainly, find out the reasons why people are opposed—it could be for good reason—but don’t be frozen into inaction.

When you ask a friend to do something for you, there’s a good chance they will agree because of the existing relationship. In other words, they like you. In the work setting, you can’t realistically hope to be liked by everybody. The classic negotiation book Getting To Yes (Fisher, Ury, Patton) describes a need to separate the relationship from the problem at hand, arguing that focusing solely on the problem is necessary to achieve an optimal outcome for both parties. So, although it is true that likability can help with requests, you might be selling yourself short if you don’t consider other methods of influence at your disposal. For example, suppose that you need to make a joint decision with a peer in the marketing department. Rather than relying on social influence, you can use your engineering expertise to sway your peer. The best result for the company here is a merit-based debate of the options, not a favor to a friend.

If you do not ask why an employee is acting inappropriately, you might miss a chance to make their life better. For example, raising the issue with a late arriver can be an opportunity to find out that they are getting burned out. I had an employee who was dragging his heels each day. He was a high performer, but had recently become a new parent. Rather than let things work themselves out, we talked about how it affected the team culture and performance. He told me about the stress of a long commute, resulting in low energy levels at work and at home. After the chat, I made an announcement that his hours would be offset by an hour to avoid rush hour on transit. Having this difficult conversation, and risking that the employee wouldn’t like me afterward, resulted in higher performance and, in the end, he might have even liked me more.

The bottom line is, be as likeable as you want, but don’t let it get in the way of your job. A former colleague has described his boss as “incompetent, but too likeable to fire.” Unfortunately, multiple of his reports have left, instead.