Likeability is one of the most overlooked career boosters. We tend to think success is earned with talent, credentials, hours logged, results delivered.
But there’s a quieter force at work, one that rarely makes it into the performance review, yet shapes who gets remembered when it comes time for promotions. That force is likeability.
In one of the most revealing studies on likeability and leadership, researchers Drs Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman analysed reviews of 51,836 business leaders to see how much being liked actually mattered.
They published the results in the Harvard Business Review in 2013 and the result was staggering: of nearly 52,000 people reviewed, only 27 were ranked in the bottom 25 per cent for likeability while still managing to place in the top 25 per cent for effectiveness.
That’s about one in 2,000.
It’s a strong sign that if people don’t like you, your odds of being seen as someone making a valuable contribution are almost nonexistent.
We claim to overlook likeability in favour of productivity, but the research suggests otherwise. The numbers actually indicate that a person’s likeability is associated with perceptions of their productivity.
In that sense, being likeable is like career lubricant. It makes working easier.
Here’s the good news: you’re probably already more likeable than you think. But if you worry about how you’re coming across, you’re completely normal and reliably wrong about it.
Researchers call it the ‘liking gap’: Prof Erica Boothby and psychologists from Cornell, Harvard, Essex and Yale Universities pinned it down in 2018.
They found that after a conversation, people consistently underestimate how much the other person liked them and enjoyed their company. Nobody is as critical of you as you fear.
Luckily, anyone can amplify their likeability – both in and outside of the workplace – by getting into a few simple habits. Here are seven you can try today…
Habit 1: Whenever you think of someone, tell them
One of the most reliable ways to become more likeable is to look for genuine reasons to like other people.
Decades of research show we like people who like us: it’s called the ‘reciprocity of liking effect’. But it only works if those people know you like them.
It sounds simple, but there’s the catch: we all have a signal amplification bias, which means we assume our signals are more obvious to others than they actually are.
The truth is that your appreciation is quieter than you think. So in order for that signal to get through – and it needs to if it’s going to be reciprocated – you have to show people you like them.
The thing to remember is, liking someone means thinking about them. But thinking is silent and invisible.
So in order to show someone you’ve been thinking about them, you have to make it loud and clear, which sounds something like this:
- "You know, I was thinking of you this weekend when I saw..."
- "[This thing I saw] made me think of you. How are you doing?"
- "I'm so glad you called! I was just thinking of you."
You can use statements like these when you see someone in the office or even as a way to reach out to old friends. “I was just thinking of you! How’s life?” is a great way to start almost any conversation.
TRY THIS… When anything at all reminds you of someone, don’t keep it to yourself. Use it as an opportunity to share the thought with them (and in turn, become more likeable).
Habit 2: Skip the small talk
Don’t start conversations with “So, how are you?” or, heaven forbid, “Been busy?” We use things like the weather and traffic to ease into chats because the deeper stuff feels risky.
But in 2022, psychologists Prof Michael Kardas, Dr Amit Kumar and Prof Nicholas Epley published research based on experiments involving over 1,800 people that showed we should probably approach conversations the opposite way.
They paired strangers up and gave each pair conversation prompts that were either shallow (the weather, the best TV show you’ve seen recently) or genuinely intimate (the thing you feel most grateful for in your life, or a time you cried in front of another person).
The participants predicted the conversations based on the deeper prompts would be uncomfortable, but afterwards they said they found them a lot less awkward than they’d expected.
In fact, according to how they rated the conversations, the intimate chats left them feeling more connected and happy.
TRY THIS… Go a little deeper than normal. Instead of asking “how are you?” ask “what’s been the highlight of your week?” Similar question; completely different conversation.
Habit 3: Ask for advice
Asking someone for advice is one of the best moves you can make. We tend to worry that needing advice makes it look like we don’t have the answers. But here’s the thing: what feels like weakness from the inside looks like courage from outside.
Researchers call it the ‘beautiful mess effect’, a term coined by Dr Anna Bruk and her colleagues at Germany’s University of Mannheim after studying people’s perceptions of vulnerability in 2018.
What’s more, by asking for someone’s advice you’re also saying you value that person’s perspective. That’s flattering in the best way. You’re essentially saying, “I think you’re worth listening to.”
TRY THIS… Ask a colleague for one piece of advice this week. If it works, let them know by using the three most powerful words someone can hear: “You were right.”
If the advice flops, follow up and explain why. The fact you took their advice seriously helps to build a bond.
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Habit 4: Leave a minute before you want to
You know that awkward way you ended a conversation recently? The one you keep replaying in your head, where you both said “So, anyway…” and left feeling clumsy? That isn’t you being bad at conversation. It’s a polite deadlock.
You were both hiding what you wanted so neither of you would seem rude or unlikeable.
In 2021, psychologist Dr Adam Mastroianni and colleagues at Harvard University published a study on over 900 conversations.
Fewer than 100 of them ended at the moment both people wanted and in almost half, both people had been ready to go before it finished. Which points to a habit almost nobody practises: leaving an interaction while it’s still going well.
But you can do just that without having to worry about seeming rude. It sounds like this:
- "I've loved this! But I need to grab a drink. Can we pick this up later?"
- "I have to run, but I want to hear the rest of that story. Coffee next week?"
TRY THIS… When you spot a natural high point in a conversation, take that as your cue to exit. Leaving early is a gift, and it’s one of the easiest ways to be remembered warmly.
5. Listen so hard it changes them
Most people treat listening as the passive part of a conversation. It’s what you do while waiting for your turn to talk. The research says the opposite.
Listening well is the most active thing happening in a conversation and, done properly, it changes the person you’re listening to.
In a study published in 2018, a team of psychologists led by Prof Guy Itzchakov (now at the University of Haifa) and Prof Avraham Kluger of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found that being listened to well changed how speakers thought and felt.
In one of the experiments people spoke for 15 minutes about an opinion that they held on a divisive topic. Half of them spoke to regular listeners, the other half got listeners trained in attentive and non-judgemental listening.
Afterwards, the speakers filled in questionnaires about how anxious they’d felt about being judged and how clear their own views now seemed.
The differences were striking.
Those speaking to the trained listeners said they felt less anxious about being judged, and so less defensive towards the person they were talking to. They dug deeper into their opinion and came out with more considered views.
So, how do you listen in a way that gets similar results? When you listen to someone, you’re mining for common ground – this is what does the heavy lifting for you when it comes to likeability.
It’s what’s known as the ‘similarity-attraction effect’ and it’s one of the most reliable findings in social psychology. We like people who share our attitudes, values and experiences, and liking tends to climb as the overlap grows.
So when the person you’re talking to mentions the town they grew up in, the book that changed their thinking, or the sport they love, you’re listening for the points where your worlds touch, and pointing them out when you hear them.
“Wait, you’re from there too?” “I had exactly that reaction to that book.” Every genuine overlap you find and reference is another reason for them to feel at ease with you.
One important caveat: the common ground has to be real. Manufacturing fake similarity to ingratiate yourself tends to backfire the moment it’s spotted. Keep asking questions until you find real similarities.
TRY THIS… Set the person you’re talking to up for success. Ask about the things that matter to them to get them talking:
- "How did you get into what you do?"
- "What are you most excited about right now, work or otherwise?"
- "What have you been reading/watching lately?"
But don’t forget: follow-up questions are crucial. There’s no better way to show you like something than asking for more of it. Ask follow-ups that show you’re listening (these can matter even more than the opener):
- "Tell me more about [that thing they mentioned]."
- "What was that like for you?"
Habit 6: Say "I'm excited" out loud
The standard advice you get before any terrifying social situation is to calm down. Dr Alison Wood Brooks of Harvard Business School tested how effective that was for things like karaoke, public speaking and maths tests in 2014.
She found that people instructed to say “I’m excited” out loud performed and felt better than the people instructed to say “I’m calm”.
Why? Because anxiety and excitement are both high-arousal states, but relabelling anxiety is easier than overcoming it, especially when you’re panicking. Telling yourself to calm down also reminds you, repeatedly, that you haven’t.
Here’s how that matters for your likeability. Flipping nerves into excitement doesn’t just change how you feel; it changes what you broadcast.
Anxiety and forced calm read as flat, guarded or tense. Excitement reads as warm, open and engaged.
These sorts of feelings are contagious – when you radiate enthusiasm, the people around you catch it and feel better in your presence.
This sort of emotional contagion first appeared in psychological research in a study from 1993 and has since been shown to be a fast track to likeability.
TRY THIS… When you’re nervous before your next high-stakes moment, say “I’m excited” out loud. You’ll feel and perform better, and so will the people around you.
Habit 7: Show up, go first and be a social saviour
Likeable people have a quiet superpower that looks like confidence, but is really just social courage. In simple terms, they go first. They ask the first question, extend the first invitation, cross the room to talk to the person standing alone.
It can feel risky in the moment, but it’s easier than you might think. For the most part, it amounts to just showing up repeatedly.
At work, showing up is the job, so think of the layer on top of that: the staff social, the ideas forum, the cross-team catch-up.
Showing up works thanks to a phenomenon called the ‘mere-exposure effect’. It was first described by Prof Robert Zajonc in 1968 and is one of the most replicated findings in psychology.
Put simply, it’s this: people rate faces and things they’ve seen before as more likeable, with no interaction required at all.
It was demonstrated in an experiment from 1992, when psychologists from the University of Pittsburgh had four women attend university classes 0, 5, 10 and 15 times across a term, without speaking to anyone.
At the end of the term, the students in those classes were shown photos of the women and asked to rate them in terms of likeability. The more classes a woman had attended, the higher the students rated her likeability.
Familiarity breeds warmth. Knowing this is enormously freeing, because it means you don’t have to be dazzling. You just have to be present. Go to the meeting or the social gathering, especially if it’s optional and you could skip it.
Then go again and become a regular face. Low-stakes, repeated visibility like this quietly does the work for you. Second, take the social risk of going first:
- Be the first to share something a tad vulnerable
- Invite someone to sit with you without them having to ask if the space is free
- Be a social saviour to an introvert by carrying the conversation or inviting them to join in
- Follow up first. Send the "it was so good to meet you" message before you talk yourself out of it
As a recovering awkward person myself, I know the first move always feels more dangerous than it actually is. The person brave enough to make it is the one everyone remembers warmly.
Try one of the actions above and see what happens. Chances are you’ll feel the benefits right away.
Let’s end on an important note: the most unlikeable thing you can do is fake it. Prof Roos Vonk of Leiden University in the Netherlands showed as much in a paper from 1998.
Vonk found that people who acted warmly towards others while remaining cold were seen as “slimy” and were rated as negatively as those who were unfriendly to everyone.
So if you don’t really like someone, don’t pretend. Instead, work on getting to know them better so you can find genuine ways to like them. And doing so requires listening intently and skipping small talk. So, it helps in a number of ways!
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