You Can’t Make Everyone Happy: The Reality of Leadership

I learned something when I was pretty young that has stuck with me throughout my life: not everyone is going to like you. Once I entered the workforce, I learned another version of that lesson: not everyone is going to like you or agree with you, and that becomes even more apparent when you move into a leadership role.

Think about every boss you’ve ever had. Chances are, people talked about them behind their back at some point. Maybe you did too. Leaders have to make decisions people don’t agree with and deliver messages people don’t want to hear. You can be thoughtful, fair and respectful and still have someone walk away unhappy with you. Accepting that you can’t make everyone happy is an important part of becoming an effective leader.

Now, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about how you communicate. Some of the best leaders I’ve worked with weren’t necessarily liked by everyone, but they were respected for the way they communicated with their teams, including when they had to deliver a difficult message. One of my current leadership coaching clients recently experienced this firsthand, and he gave me permission to share his story.

When we began working together, some of the areas he wanted to develop included executive presence, communication and navigating difficult conversations. As we talked more, one of the things that emerged was his anxiety around hurting people’s feelings or saying the wrong thing. He genuinely cares about the people he leads, which is certainly a good quality in a leader. The problem was that his concern about how someone might feel sometimes prevented him from being as direct as he needed to be. This is where good intentions can actually work against you as a leader. If you’re so worried about hurting someone’s feelings that you aren’t clearly telling them where they’re falling short, they don’t have the information they need to improve. It’s also not fair to the rest of the team when someone’s underperformance isn’t being addressed, and it’s certainly not fair to the leader who is carrying around the stress and anxiety of a conversation that needs to happen.

Recently, my client needed to deliver a performance review to an employee who was underperforming. We spent time talking through the situation and preparing for the conversation. We weren’t trying to find the perfect words that would guarantee she wouldn’t become upset, because those words don’t exist. Instead, we focused on what specifically his team member needed to understand about improving, and how he could remain calm and direct even if the conversation became uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable it was indeed. The person was defensive and upset throughout the conversation but my client remained calm and communicated the feedback directly. He explained where she was underperforming and why, and he didn’t back away from the message because she didn’t like what she was hearing.

When he told me how the conversation went, I considered that a successful outcome because he handled things in the way we had been working toward. He can’t control how someone reacts to difficult feedback, but he can control how he delivers it and how he responds to that reaction.

There was another outcome that I think is just as important. He was able to let it go afterward. His anxiety around these situations has improved considerably because he’s beginning to understand that someone can be unhappy with what he says and that doesn’t automatically mean he said or did something wrong.

I think that’s an important distinction for leaders who care deeply about their teams. You can care about someone’s feelings without taking responsibility for their feelings. You can be empathetic while still being direct. You can listen to someone’s perspective without changing a message that needs to be delivered simply because they’re upset by it.

This is also why I think executive presence is sometimes misunderstood. Some folks may think it refers only to how you present yourself in a meeting with senior leadership or whether you appear confident when you’re speaking in front of a group. Executive presence also shows up in moments like what I described with my client. Can you stay grounded when a conversation becomes uncomfortable? Can you communicate clearly when someone disagrees with you? Can you manage your own emotions when the person across from you is struggling to manage theirs?

While I’m probably best known for my career coaching work, leadership coaching is also an important part of what I do. I work with leaders on executive presence, communication, difficult conversations and the everyday challenges that come with managing and developing people. The bottom line is that you can’t make everyone happy, especially when you’re responsible for leading them. What you CAN do is communicate honestly, treat people with respect and become more confident handling the conversations that come with the responsibility of leadership.