My phone started buzzing yesterday and didn’t stop. Not “group chat chaos” buzzing, but message after message from women I respect, dropping truth into my inbox the way you pass a note in class when the teacher is looking the other way. Truly, the amount of outreach was astounding.
Kind. Heavy. And weirdly grounding, because so many of the stories sounded like different versions of the same sentence. Then one message landed that made me pause: “I love this post and want to comment… but I’m afraid my boss will think I am trying to send him a message.” This amazing, successful human is AFRAID.
To comment.
To share.
To click that tiny blue thumbs-up because it might get translated into “problem employee detected.”
Which is wild, because on this app, we will publicly endorse “Resilience” twelve times a day with a lighthouse photo. We will clap for “Bold leadership” from someone who posted and then disappeared for six months. We celebrate “Transparency” while actively communicating in smoke signals. But someone liking a post about the challenges of women at work? That’s when the alarms go off?
That fear doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from lived pattern recognition. From watching how quickly “professional” becomes “difficult” when it’s coming from the wrong person. And that is not just women, its anyone “interfering” when their labeled for…
having an opinion as “hard.”
naming a pattern as “dramatic.”
being direct as “they need coaching.”
being confident as “they’re a lot.”
setting a boundary as “not a team player.”
It is exhausting. It’s also, unfortunately, a system that runs on our participation. So, let’s talk about the professional superpower nobody trains for: THE COURAGE TO BE DISLIKED. Now, I’m not advocating for being careless or cruel. If you know me, you KNOW that is NOT my style. I’m talking about the kind of courage that looks boring from outside. Where you choose accuracy over applause and stop performing likability as your FT job.
Because the second you start doing hard things, leadership things, you WILL be misunderstood. People WILL judge your tone, timing, face, volume, and silence. They’ll take one sentence and build a whole personality dossier.
And SOME will dislike you simply for what you represent.
If you spend your career trying to outrun that, you’ll run yourself to the ground.
So if you wanted to support yesterday’s post and hesitated, I’m not mad. I get it, truly. A lot of us have learned to survive by staying “pleasantly neutral,” like workplace Switzerland. But I also want to offer a reframe:
-A like is not a smoke signal.
-A comment is not an HR case file.
-Supporting others is not a performance issue. The more we normalize saying, “Yes, I see this,” the less power the courtroom in our heads has.
So, let’s practice together, no capes required. What’s one “likable” habit you’re retiring this year, and what are you replacing it with? Drop it in the comments.
