The Cost of Being Liked

For most of my life, being liked felt important.

More than important.

It felt safe.

If someone was upset with me, I'd replay the conversation over and over, wondering what I'd missed. I'd look for the misunderstanding, try to smooth things over, explain myself, find a way back to common ground.

I don't think I realized how much of my identity was wrapped up in being understood.

Then I became a founder.

It turns out leadership asks something different of you.

Sometimes you're asked to make a decision that disappoints someone.

Sometimes you're asked to protect the business instead of the individual.

Sometimes you're asked to carry information that can't be shared.

And sometimes, despite your best intentions, someone walks away believing you were the villain in their story.

That has been one of the hardest lessons of my career.

There have been moments when former employees have criticized me publicly or shared stories about what it was like to work with me. Some of those criticisms have made me stop and reflect. Some have pointed to mistakes I genuinely wish I'd handled differently.

Others have been much harder to sit with.

Not because I believe my decisions were perfect, but because I knew there was so much context they never saw.

A difficult client threatening to leave.

Months of coaching before a performance conversation.

The pressure of making payroll.

The responsibility of knowing that one bad quarter could affect not just my family, but every family connected to the business.

None of that means my decisions were always right.

It also doesn't erase someone else's experience.

If someone felt hurt by my leadership, that's real.

But I've come to realize something that's uncomfortable to admit.

People can have a genuine experience of you without having the full picture of what you were carrying.

That's not their fault.

It's the nature of leadership.

Employees experience one piece of the story.

Leaders are responsible for all of it.

For a long time, I wanted to explain myself.

I wanted people to understand why I made certain decisions.

I wanted to provide the context they didn't have.

Eventually, I realized that leadership doesn't always give you that opportunity.

Some decisions can't be fully explained.

Not because they're secretive.

Because explaining them would violate someone else's privacy, create unnecessary fear, or transfer anxiety onto the very people you're trying to lead.

Leadership often means carrying weight quietly.

And that's lonelier than I ever expected.

I think that's why so many founders struggle.

From the outside, entrepreneurship can look like freedom.

From the inside, it often feels like responsibility.

Responsibility for payroll.

Responsibility for clients.

Responsibility for culture.

Responsibility for making decisions when there isn't a clear right answer.

Responsibility for staying calm when everyone else is looking to you for certainty.

It's a kind of emotional labor that doesn't get talked about very often.

Not because leaders are looking for sympathy.

Because many of us don't have many places to put it.

That's one of the reasons organizations like EO, YPO, and other founder groups exist.

Not because entrepreneurs need more networking.

Because they need peers.

People who understand what it's like to lie awake wondering how you'll make payroll.

People who understand the tension between being transparent and protecting your team from unnecessary worry.

People who know what it's like to make a decision that half the room may disagree with while still believing it's the right one.

Years ago, I realized there wasn't really a version of that kind of community for queer women founders and executives.

That's why I created Vision Board.

Not because I thought leaders needed more advice.

Most leaders are surrounded by advice.

They need perspective.

They need honesty.

They need a room where they don't have to explain why leadership feels heavy.

A room where someone else simply nods because they've carried that weight too.

I've spent a lot of my life believing that being liked was the goal.

Leadership has slowly taught me something different.

Being liked is wonderful.

Being respected matters.

But neither can become the compass for every decision.

Sometimes leadership requires disappointing people.

Sometimes it requires making a decision that won't be fully understood.

Sometimes people will tell a story about you that you wish they wouldn't.

You don't get to control that.

What you do get to control is whether you lead with integrity.

Whether you're willing to listen.

Whether you own your mistakes.

Whether you treat people with dignity, even when the conversation is difficult.

I still want people to like me.

I suspect I always will.

But I'm learning that leadership isn't the practice of being universally liked.

It's the practice of carrying responsibility with as much courage, fairness, and humanity as you can.

And on the days when that responsibility feels especially heavy, I hope every leader has at least one place where they don't have to explain it.

A place where someone simply says,

"I know.

I've carried it too."