3

What’s Like Got to Do with It?

The Rewards of Respect

I have a cousin who was one of the cool kids in the neighborhood. Growing up a child of immigrants, I marveled at how my cousin so easily adopted American culture. She donned trendy door-knocker hoop earrings, a cool asymmetrical haircut, the most modern clothes, but most importantly, she could jump rope Double Dutch style. I was not well-versed in the secular life or pop culture of the day; my pigtailed eight-year-old self knew more about the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times than MC Lyte. My cousin and her friends were at a local block party engaging in a Double Dutch competition—jumping Brooklyn style, with old-fashioned wire phone cords for the jump rope, under the streetlamp with a small boom box, while blasting Rob Base’s hit song, It takes two, at the highest decibel level possible—I was left out, a spectator on the sidelines, a nonparticipant in the rhythm and cadence of skipping chants and rhymes.

As the girls jumped rope, I had no idea what songs they were singing, or why “Miss Penny called the lady with the alligator purse.” Yet, I imitated them, mouthing words to make it look like I knew the songs. I begged my cousin to let me jump rope with her, but to no avail. She must have known that most certainly I would trip on my first try, and in doing so embarrass her in front of her cool friends. Finally, after enough nagging, she gave in.

Her friends turned the rope, and my cousin told me to follow the count—5, 4, 3, 2, 1—before I jumped in. Well, upon entry, the rope caught my ankle, and instantly I lost the game for the whole team. What a loser, I thought. I was nothing more than a fraud trying to fit into a group that would never accept me because I was different. I was a nerd. I could hear the bevy of voices snickering, “I don’t like her.” If only I could find a way for them to “like” me, my cousin would accept me. For that to happen, I’d need to change my interests. Stop reading the real estate sections on Sundays. I’d need to part with my braids and go for the shave. Then I’d be invited to skip Double Dutch.

The psychology of attraction reveals many reasons people like us and why we like certain people in return. Among them are relatability and common interests, being physically appealing, and proximity. Attempting to force people to like you or accept you—whether it be through imitation, acquiescence, or plain old tagging along—will cause you to have to uphold an act or performance that will never be sustainable. The role-playing, aside from being utterly exhausting, will ultimately trip up your ankle with a jump rope of your own making. For far too many women, no matter how far they’ve gotten in life or how much they’ve achieved in their career trajectory, continue to compete in an imaginary Double Dutch competition.

You don’t know how to skip one rope, not to mention two! And whether you can or not won’t guarantee people will like you. In fact, the first step into the no explanation lifestyle is normalizing the fact that, especially in your professional journey, not all people will like you.

Some people may not gel with your personality, may not share the same values, or may alienate you out of envy. Likability in life and your career is not the goal. Respect is the goal: earning it, keeping it, exuding it, building on it. But how can we focus on such serious matters when being a woman in the workplace can feel like checking the weather before going outside, taking the temperatures of our environment and the various people within it:

•   Is this the day to smile?

•   Is this the day to be upset?

•   Am I smiling enough?

•   Do I look approachable?

•   Do I look upset?

We get so many mixed messages on what it takes to be respected in the workplace, we tend to default back on the likability characteristics, never recognizing the actions that signal and secure our respect.

I spent so much of my life trying to find ways to be accepted and “liked.” I realize now that when I entered corporate America, I tried to build friendships and relationships. I thought the goal was to work during the day and have happy hour in the evening with my coworkers. For a few years, I crossed the line several times, inviting coworkers to my home and sharing experiences in my personal life, which left me vulnerable to judgments and attacks. I misinterpreted the meaning of the workplace. I thought that if I focused on my likability factor, these people would help me get to the top. Subsequently, all of those “friendships’’ worked against me. I was passed up for every opportunity for professional growth because instead of building relationships with key decision makers and gatekeepers, I was focused on having parties and gatherings with people who could never help me to grow in my career. I was also not surrounded by like-minded people, wasting my time being popular with people who did not have my level of ambition. The perception of the decision makers was that I was only as good as the crowd I hung out with, and about as serious: guilty by association.

While I was laughing and trying to be accepted, some of the same colleagues I had confided in were being taken seriously because they knew how to play the game. I was naive and thought that just showing up for work every day, putting on a great outfit, working overtime, and smiling every morning was more than enough to get noticed. I didn’t prove myself to be worthy of a promotion or an advancement; I just proved that I was the office confidant. As I continued to be alienated by some of my colleagues, who were quickly moving up the ladder into the C-suite, I had to redirect some of my energy and focus onto how to change my mindset to grasp the fact that I was losing a significant amount of my equity at work. In my quest to be liked, I was forgoing the only road that mattered: the one that leads to respect.

I partly blame myself for not understanding the significance of earning respect at work. After my internship with the Brooklyn DA, I worked with a woman named Deborah at a boutique law firm in Garden City, New York, and I always saw her as playful, nice, thoughtful, and more as a friend than an attorney. Deborah used to hang out with many of the interns and support staff at a local restaurant after work, and I enjoyed her company. She kept all of us laughing, but Deborah had a completely different personality—an alter ego—in the presence of the partners. At work, amongst the partners, who were all male, she was the only woman who had an invitation into some of the partnership-level meetings. I viewed her humbleness and humor as more of a friend than a colleague, but when the announcement was made that she had made partner, I realized she knew how to earn respect. She had one personality for the support staff and another for all of the partners. The announcement blindsided me because other women who worked at the firm seemed to be disturbed by her success. Today, Deborah has moved on from being a partner in a boutique law firm to the owner and head partner of her own commercial litigation law firm on Wall Street, with a roster of noteworthy clients such as Target and Walgreens. We stay in touch on social media; her jokes on her Instagram live posts have me in stitches, but I am well aware that she has boundaries, which led her from being a law student to an associate to a partner to an owner—and one of her male associates happens to be one of the founding partners of the firm we used to work for.

Deborah took the road leading to respect first and also was a likable person. She did not allow likability to overshadow her ascension into the C-suite. She commanded respect and was invited into high-level rooms where decisions were being made, and although I had not seen her in action, she had certainly added value. Only a select few women I have ever worked with in law firms have ever made it to the partnership level, and it continues to be rare due to disparities in pay and investment levels (you have to pay to have your name on the door of the top law firms, sometimes in the high six figures). She has always been to me a leading example of how to be liked and respected.

A Fine Line

There is a difference between being liked and being respected, and women are often unfairly forced to choose between the two. On one hand, being liked will give you social capital in the office, because you are kind, approachable, polite, and agreeable. I define gaining respect at work as setting boundaries and articulating clear intentions as a leader. Some women are conditioned to believe this is rigid and aggressive, but neither quality need apply. Respect does not require you to be mean or assertive, but it does require clarity, which is the opposite of how you will be viewed in the office when you’re liked. Common phrases such as “I have an open-door policy” or “let me know if you ever need anything” will be hard to uphold when you focus on respect. You can have an open-door policy, but you must discern who you grant access to such a policy. When you focus on respect, you cannot be everything to everyone. Caroline Fairchild, Editor at Large at LinkedIn, stated in a LinkedIn article titled, “For Women, Being “Liked” at Work Is a Double-Edged Sword,” women leaders are four times more likely than men to be seen as collaborative in the workplace. It goes on to state that, “We also need to place more women—women with all sorts of personalities, leadership styles and mannerisms—into positions of power. Only then will the pressure lessen for female leaders to be both ‘likeable’ and ‘perfect’
at work.”

Erin Loos Cutraro, chief executive and founder of She Should Run, stated in “The Likability Trap Is Still a Thing,” an article published in the New York Times, “We expect women to be both highly qualified and likable,” while “men are seen as strong and electable simply because they’re men.” This is a setup for failure, because if we feel we must be liked, we overcommunicate and justify our decisions using passive language and details that make us vulnerable and open to being coerced and manipulated. Our demeanor changes, which affects the outcome of how we articulate ourselves. If you believe you are in front of people you like and who like you, chances are you’re going to be more friendly, less direct, and a bit vague, especially if you’ve had them over to your house for happy hour. We will talk about how to defend against this trap of passiveness in Chapters 8 and 9.

I can honestly say I gave away tens of thousands of dollars in the course of business because I did not have nonnegotiable boundaries nor did I command respect in the beginning. I don’t want you to fall into the same traps I did.

My Lesson with Likability

When I first started my transition into the real estate investing game, one of my first transactions was a rehab project on two acres of prime real estate in North Carolina. With very little money and no relationships, I needed a partner to help me fund the deal. I was introduced to a couple, who also happened to be pastors in a local church, who were very interested in the property. They were warm and welcoming, and we instantly connected. They invited me to their home and I met their children. I was impressed by all of their accolades within the real estate community. Within a matter of weeks, we went to tour the property and they promised to help me fund the deal for a percentage of the profit.

I found a basic operating agreement on Google and they signed it, but I did not know that there were so many parameters within the agreement that would not fully protect my interests if I were circumvented. Why would I think of anything like that since I thought they were trustworthy? A few weeks went by, and all of our communication became scarce. It just happened that one day, I was in the area of the property, and I noticed a heavy amount of construction taking place. This was odd because we had not closed on the purchase of the property. I called the seller to find out if he had changed his mind about the sale, to which he replied, “No, we went to closing a few days ago.” The seller also went on to say, “I want to thank you so much for introducing me to the pastors because now that the property is sold, I can move on to other projects.” I had no idea that these pastors had worked out a deal without me and closed on the property in a secret transaction. Enraged, I called them to collect my share of the profits.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the pastor said. “We don’t owe you anything; you made an introduction and we closed. End of story.”

We’ll talk later about rash reactions versus thoughtful responses, but let’s just say I reacted . . . passionately. We exchanged some heated words, most of which I am ashamed to repeat, but I was angry. The next morning, I filed a small claims suit against them. When we arrived at court, the pastors entered the courthouse masterfully dressed in their clergy cloaks, indicating a well-rehearsed serial scam. Both pastors told the judge they didn’t remember signing an agreement with me; they had thought that I wanted their autograph to sell on eBay. This spectacle of lies went on for two hours; the judge ruled in their favor. As we walked out of the courtroom, they unzipped the robes, looked at me, and laughed. The joke was on me: the pastors went on to make about half a million dollars in profit on that one home, of which I never saw a dime.

That was my first and last trip to the court, and probably one of the best lessons I ever learned. Focusing on being liked caused me to blindly trust people who did not have my best interest in mind. When you reveal too much, people spot your weaknesses and make a play for them. The pastors sensed I had set up an expectation of validation instead of value. In her TED Talk, “The Likability Dilemma,” Robin Hauser said, “Women who negotiate for themselves are perceived as selfish and women who negotiate on behalf of someone else are perceived to be helpful, and a helpful woman might be liked more . . . but the helpful woman will not be recognized as having what it takes to be a successful leader.” This was a valuable lesson on the importance of setting the ground rules for respect and outcomes.

The Psychology of Likable

Why do people like certain people and not others? What compels someone to conform to someone else’s standards in an attempt to win approval? It may be harmful in your career, as you may have to adhere to a level that could be below your value. Women often get caught in a trap of middle management historically because they’re unsure of what to expect from the next level, which commonly has had a horrible reputation. If you’ve ever watched the movie The Devil Wears Prada, you may understand this theory, where it appears that a woman in leadership has to be shrewd, with an unapproachable demeanor to be a leader. All of these are myths, but once you open up and see yourself being liked, it is difficult to earn the respect of decision makers and gatekeepers in the C-suite.

You can be both liked and respected at work, as long as you set the framework that will guide your interactions, which I will demonstrate later in this chapter. But on the seesaw of personality traits that are effective in accelerating your path to leadership, it is more productive to be respected than to be liked. “High-achieving women experience social backlash because their very success—and specifically the behaviors that created that success—violates our expectations about how women are supposed to behave. Women are expected to be nice, warm, friendly, and nurturing,” according to an article by Marianne Cooper in the Harvard Business Review, titled “For Women Leaders, Likability and Success Hardly Go Hand-in-Hand.”

There are a few distinct differences between liking people and respecting them. I recently sent out a request for contractors for a roofing project on a local website. On the day of the open call, 20 contractors came to the job site and claimed that they were ready to do the roofing job based on the request for a quote that was listed. One by one, they all measured, and I must say they were all friendly and nice, but there were only two in the entire group that showed up on that cold morning that I respected. Everyone was likable, but only two were prepared with an estimate and evidence to substantiate the investment. By setting the groundwork early in our conversation, they were able to build trust and a rapport with my team. They were prepared to prove themselves to win over not just one job, but all of the collective roofing jobs we could potentially have in the future. The personalities are all the same, but very few provide the framework to substantiate their qualifications. For that, I deeply respected both contractors, and I have worked with both of them on subsequent jobs as well.

The Flip-Flop Philosophy

Three Boundaries That Build Respect

Maintain a Standard for How You Are Addressed

At an important business meeting in San Francisco that had taken three months to secure, I found myself the only woman among 14 men in the room. To my dismay and against my wishes, word had gotten out that my father had lost his cancer battle just two days prior. “Babe, I’m so sorry for your loss,” one attendee said, which led to the other man saying, “Honey, sorry you’re going through this right now.” And the next man chimed in, “Sweetie, you’re in my prayers.” I had to shift the focus onto the agenda.

I replied, “To be clear, my name is not babe, honey, or sweetie. My name is Carol. I thank you for all of your well wishes during this difficult time and appreciate your concern. But if we can agree to call each other by our first names, and only our first names, I think it is most appropriate.”

Allowing terms of endearment shifts the priority from respect to like, and that was not the purpose of making a cross-country trip, versus postponing or canceling the meeting during such a solemn time in my life. I have boundaries and standards, and I had to set the clear expectation that the babe, honey, gumdrop thing doesn’t work with me. I maintain the same standard with women who call me “sis” or “sweetheart.” Unless we have that relationship, I don’t do it to anyone, and I don’t expect it to be done to me. When we conflate lines of respect, unintentionally we settle for less than we deserve—and that’s why some meetings in the C-suite never happen for women. If a decision maker calls you “sweetie” during the meeting and you don’t clarify your position, it indicates that you are not clearly communicating your boundaries and expectations.

I have the same standard for my tenants. Some are a little bit older, and when it’s time to do property inspections, they love to call me “sweetheart,” seeing me as their granddaughter and not their landlord. I always have to shift the focus back, saying, “If I call you Mr. Jackson, you can call me Mrs. Sankar. If I call you Bob, you can call me Carol. There’s no need to cross any lines because I deserve the same respect that I give you. I have a standard of how I want to be treated and a standard of how I believe you need to be treated, and as long as we stay along that line, we can achieve great things.”

As women, we have a way of lightheartedly accepting terms of endearment in professional settings and justifying it as a joke or vernacular. We rarely witness men having the same interactions at work or senior-level women interacting in the same manner. When was the last time you heard the VP of sales call the CFO “Bro” or “Buddy” during a strategy meeting? Women normalize lower-level standards, beginning with de-individualizing themselves using fluffy nicknames, and then wonder why we cannot get ahead. The moment your manager—man or woman—starts calling you “honey,” neither has any intention of giving you access to the C-suite. They have demoted your access without you ever having the chance to first express your intent. When you focus on being respected, you start with how people address you, and you work your way down to create the level of attention and expectation for people to treat you.

Prioritize the Day

The number one priority at work is productivity. Although it is important to build relationships, it is equally important to prioritize every moment of the day to ensure that every task has a measurable value—such as making 10 introductory or sales calls by the end of the day or measuring the success of your social media ad campaigns and analyzing the data. From the meetings you attend to the emails you respond to, and even some of the after-work social networks—it is important to have a list of priorities each day. Decision makers and gatekeepers pay close attention to your effectiveness daily. That’s how they determine promotions and leadership roles; if you can be the most effective member of the team, you will possibly be on their watch list. Rather than spending the morning gossiping at the water cooler or standing at a colleague’s desk talking about something you watched on Netflix, stick to your tasks at hand so that you can gain a high level of respect at work.

To achieve this, you must create a list of deliverables, expectations, and intentions for the day. Here are some great ways to prioritize your day:

•   Make a list. Make a list of the most important tasks of the day at least 24 hours in advance, and create a road map to achieve a result by the end of the day.

•   Prioritize your emails. Create a folder in your inbox of priority emails that must be addressed first thing in the morning when you enter the office. That level of engagement in the first part of the day allows you to have more time to effectively solve problems for the rest of the day. Rather than respond to a difficult customer or client in the afternoon, which could interrupt your productivity, make it your top priority in the morning.

•   Create relationships over lunch. I consistently reference relationships throughout this book, and the best time to create relationships is over lunch. There’s nothing better than a lunch meeting to have short and guided conversations and interactions with decision makers. Instead of using lunchtime as relaxation time, use that time to get into the direct eyesight of all of the gatekeepers who need to know your name. It doesn’t have to be formal, but you will gain their respect if you find a way to get on their calendar. A lunch meeting is one of the most important meetings you’ll ever have in your career—don’t waste it sitting in a lunchroom with your colleagues and gossiping. Spend that time advancing your career as a leader.

•   Be approachable, yet work in silence. If you manage to be invited to lunch with a gatekeeper or decision maker, express your professional ambitions, but keep their advice guarded. Those conversations are confidential, but they are mentorship meetings. The higher you go in your career, the more you will have to make high-level moves in silence. If you want to gain the respect of decision makers, they have to know that you are willing to keep the conversations you engage in during your lunch meetings confidential.

•   Take the lead. Whenever possible, if there is a work-related project or an assignment that could use a leader in any capacity, don’t look around the room—raise your head and take the lead. You earn the respect of your colleagues by moving forward and taking on challenging assignments, not lowering your head and hoping not to be called on. Don’t wait for anyone to find you: raise your hand and be seen. Whether you are qualified or not, the first act of courage to gain respect is taking the lead. There have been many times when I have taken on projects where I had no idea where to start, but somehow, the level of responsibility helped me to become a problem solver. It also allowed me to gain the respect of other decision makers. It is also a great way for you to build relationships with mentors and advisors who will help you succeed.

Reclaim Your Time

Part of my sternness around time is to ensure that every minute of an encounter is used productively. For example, if we have an introductory call at noon just to get acquainted and identify any professional synergy, I expect that you are on the call before noon, because only the minutes after 12 are the ones that I will count as productive. If we land on the call before noon, let’s say 11:55 a.m., then we can exchange a few moments of small talk. I must stick to an agenda that leads to a favorable result, and that cannot be done unless I set the intention early for our meeting. I have the same expectation of almost every element of my professional life. If we are supposed to meet at a specific time, if you want to have a glass of wine before the meeting, I’m up for it. But at the time the meeting begins, everything is business from then until the end of the scheduled time. The goal is to ensure that people respect my values. Besides, I don’t give my time easily.

Getting on my calendar is quite difficult, and there are layers of people who discern the importance of every meeting before it even gets to my calendar. There are only a few situations where I’m personally involved, but I have a long list of calls, meetings, and emails that I will not respond to, simply because I try to ensure that we save our time within the company for stakeholders, decision makers, and clients, rather than having unguided conversations without a direct result.

None of this means, however, that I don’t laugh and joke with my team or decision makers. Completely the opposite: I sprinkle a lot of humor into my respect routine. I am funny and gracious, but I set my intentions early in every meeting by starting with, “What I hope we can accomplish within the next 20 minutes together is an accurate budget to meet next month’s sales target.” I make sure that I outline my expectations, and I’m very meticulous about my time. If I say that I only have four minutes, believe me, I’m leaving in four minutes.

When people understand your boundaries, they understand that there’s a time to laugh and a time to do business. It also works well when decision makers can see that you have specific standards and know-how to balance your priorities, which will be no different in the C-suite. When you learn how to command respect, you’re less likely to apologize when communicating, because it’s an expectation that you have specific standards.

If all along you focus on being liked, the day that you decide to set a standard or a boundary, you will be compelled to apologize publicly and over explain the sudden change when it is time to enforce it. No one needs to fear you to respect you, you just have to set nonnegotiable boundaries very early and people will still like you.

How To Create Your Respect Routine

Make Yourself an Asset

There comes a moment in your career when you need to recognize the difference between an asset and a liability. Assets focus on performance and ascending further in their career. They are irreplaceable to the success of their team and company and are viewed as revenue generators. When a gatekeeper presents a selected pool of vested in-house talent for promotion, it normally starts with revenue: “Janet is our lead sales director for the acquisitions department, who helped us close $10 million last quarter. I think she should be considered for the role of VP of this department.” On the other hand, a liability is stationary at a comfortable position and rarely takes any risks. I have a few friends who proudly proclaim themselves to be a liability at work because they are afraid of the responsibility that comes with management roles. It is not negative at all, but they are not interested in career growth.

Although these are terms related to finance, they’re very helpful to explain the process of navigating toward the C-suite. Once you become an asset, the quality of your work and relationships become intentional: meaning everything you do, everyone you meet, every goal you set has an identified purpose—an intention to accelerate your career. This is the stage where the value of introductions matters. It is also the stage where what people say about you when you’re not in the room will change your career path.

Gatekeepers to every decision maker are watching you in silence and making decisions about promotions and recommendations outside of the typical workday. Focusing on creating a level of respect will yield positive results, which makes it easier for you to communicate your value and gain influence to climb the leadership ladder.

Set Expectations

Every interaction in your career must end with a deliverable. For example, as I mentioned earlier about the importance of requesting lunch meetings, when you send the request, make sure you include a reason for the invitation and a few topics you would like to cover during your limited time together. A vague request may not attract a response, but when you are specific, especially if you include an agenda, it will attract attention. Limit all conversations or correspondence that do not yield results. It’s a matter of prioritizing your time effectively by setting a productivity schedule.

For example, let’s say someone asked to get on the phone with you and pick your brain about your expertise, an appropriate response could be (choose one or all):

•   Can you provide a list of three questions in advance to guide our discussion?

•   Please provide a full agenda and the outcomes you hope to gain from this conversation within the next 24 hours so my team can decide how to proceed.

•   Is it possible to have this conversation via email?

•   You’re welcome to send a request through to my administrative department, and they will let you know of my availability.

You must choose a response that is strategic and direct. Most of all, your response must indicate that you understand the value of your time. A common phobia that professional women struggle with is simply saying no. It may sound a bit rigid, but it will help you increase productivity by discerning the importance of the request before responding. In addition, it will help you to create effective and timely responses in advance to avoid reacting to inquiries, which we will discuss soon.

Stay In Your Lane

The lesson I learned from trying to jump Double Dutch with my cousin and her friends was that I always knew it was not for me. I’ve tried that same trick many times, and always ended up with the same result—failure. When you stay in your lane, avoiding the need to fit in with others at work, decision makers notice. This doesn’t mean you should alienate yourself from other colleagues, coworkers, and associates, it simply means you are aware of your strengths and there is no need to talk yourself into playing Double Dutch when you are only great at hopscotch. Even if you play alone, someone will notice and either join you or ask you to teach them how to play the game.

I have met many women who try too hard at work to be an imitation of everyone else while limiting themselves. The impact of trying to “fit in” has a direct effect on why women focus on likability. Besides, it is easy to follow the crowd, and I understand that need. But your unique skills will open specific doors that are related to your specialty. You were onboarded because you offer something unique. Don’t fall into the trap of doing what everyone else does just to be accepted. It is an easy trap to fall into, and one of the reasons why the glass cliff—women who have been offered short-term seats in the C-suite to fill quotas—is disproportionately impacting women. Remember to bring your authentic self and your specific expertise to your career. It is a door opener and a game changer.