How Chasing Approval Quietly Runs Your Company

It is a survival mechanism.

Where the habit comes from

If you grew up in an environment where silence meant a storm was coming. Maybe it was one parent, a family member, a sibling, or all of the above.

As a defensive mechanism, you became elite at reading rooms. You learned to detect a shift in mood before a word was spoken. You did not do it to lead. You did it to stay safe.

As a leader, that radar can be a liability.

If you are chasing approval, you are not chasing the mission.

What the research says about likability

We are taught that leadership is about consensus. We think a “good” executive is one who keeps the team happy and the board calm. The data tells a different story.

The CEO Genome Project, a ten-year study of 17,000 C-suite assessments, found a startling gap between what gets you hired and what makes you successful. High confidence and charisma more than double your chances of being hired. However, they have zero correlation with actual job performance.

In fact, the study found that high-performing leaders are often described as less “likable” in the traditional sense. They are twelve times more likely to be high-performing because they are decisive, not because they are popular.

When you prioritize being liked, you move too slowly. You wait for everyone to be on board. You round the edges of your strategy until it is smooth, safe, and completely ineffective. According to Harvard research, 94% of executive failures are not due to making the wrong decision. They are due to making no decision at all while waiting for a consensus that never comes.

Leaders who chose results over approval

Consider the leaders who actually moved the needle.

Jeff Bezos famously believed that harmony is overvalued in the workplace. He built Amazon on the principle of “Disagree and Commit.” He knew that honest conflict is the only way to strip away bad ideas.

Steve Jobs was not known for his warmth. He was known for a relentless, often abrasive pursuit of excellence. He understood that his job was not to be a “nice guy.” It was to be a yardstick of quality.

If you are hired to scale a company or restructure a team, you are hired to be a disruptor. Disruption, by definition, makes people unhappy. If everyone in the room is comfortable with your plan, you are probably not pushing hard enough.

Think of Billy Beane in Moneyball.

There is a scene where he sits in the locker room alone. This is after most of his team called him crazy for his approach and decisive leadership. He listens to the radio as the world calls him arrogant, cold, and wrong. He is “ruining the game.”

He did not change the math to make the scouts like him. He did not apologize for his leadership style to calm the tension in the front office. He knew that the friction was not a sign of failure. It was the sound of the status quo breaking.

You have to be willing to be the villain in one person’s story to be the hero of the company’s results.

What to do when the alarm goes off

The next time an executive questions your leadership or your team, your brain will scream “danger.” It is an old reflex from a tense past.

Correct it.

That tension is not a threat to your safety. It is the tax for entry into high-stakes leadership.

Respect and kindness can go together

Letting go of approval doesn't mean being harsh. Kim Scott, a former Google and Apple leader, calls the balance radical candor: caring personally about people while challenging them directly. Leaders who only care avoid hard truths. Leaders who only challenge lose trust.

• Say the hard thing early, in private, and plainly.
• Explain the reason behind a decision, even when people disagree.
• Ask for feedback on your decisions and change course when you're wrong.
• Let people be unhappy for a while without rushing to fix it.

Where the habit shows up at work

• Softening feedback until the message is lost.
• Delaying a hard decision until everyone agrees.
• Saying yes to requests that pull the team off its goals.
• Keeping someone in a role too long because the conversation feels hard.

Each of these feels kind in the moment. Over time, each one costs the team more than the honest conversation would have.

This is easier when people feel safe speaking up. I wrote about building that trust in vulnerable conversations at work, and about what CEOs share in why not everyone can be a CEO.

Aim for respect. Affection is optional. If the numbers are moving and the strategy is sound, the unhappiness in the room is just noise. It is “weather.” You can acknowledge it without letting it change your course.

Stop trying to fix the mood. Fix the business.

The weight in your stomach is not fear. It is the feeling of doing the work.

Related reading: What My First Trip to Miraval Taught Me About Unplugging · What I Learned in 2025 and What I Expect in 2026 · Most of What We Eat Is Acidic. So Is Most of Modern Life.