If you wanna play a bigger game, you gotta toughen up! That means disconnecting from your Inner Pleaser and growing thicker skin.
By nature, we women want everyone’s approval. Successful women are no different. Almost everyone I’ve interviewed confessed to a “little girl inside me who wants to be liked.”
However, success requires us to make difficult, even painful, decisions that often have negative consequences for other people.
“You have to do the hard stuff,” said one mega high earner. That ‘hard stuff’ included firing employees, ending partnerships, holding tight during demanding negotiations, enforcing an unpopular policy, firing high paying clients, even enduring multiple rejections and disappointments.
Toughening up doesn’t mean you have to harden your heart, numb your senses, or go all macho.
It does mean you need to dramatically shift your priorities to:
I’d rather be respected than liked.
This one shift in thinking– ‘I’d rather be respected than liked’ –means developing a “rhinoceroses hide” while keeping an open heart. This is precisely how we’ll become strong, effective leaders without compromising our feminine nature. This is what will allow us to be powerful without being punitive, forthright without being unfeeling, responsible without being ruthless.
Where do you need to toughen up? If you’re like me, I bet it’s not just at work, but on the home front too. Leave me a comment below.
Comments & Feedback