Genuine By Linda Stowe
One of my bosses was very well liked. His supervisors liked him, his peers liked him, even the people below him liked him. You would be hard pressed to find someone who did not like this man. He once told me that the secret to being liked is to act as if you like everyone and they like you.
I had to think about this for a while, but I think I finally understood it. People take their cues from one another. If you approach someone behaving in such a way, they’re going to reciprocate. We approach people we do not like differently from how we approach those we like. The person you approach with your guard up is going to also remain aloof. But the person you genuinely like will be just as open and friendly as you are. We get back what we send out.
My boss was warm and personable with everyone. He was popular because everyone believed that he liked them. As his secretary, I knew this was not always the case. There were people that he did not like or trust, but they were not aware of how he felt through personal interactions. More than once I have seen people whom he had just fired come out of his office smiling and shaking his hand. He was not a “yes man,” but he had this uncanny talent for making people feel like they were the most important person in the world.
I never had this talent. My feelings about someone are almost always obvious. I do not know how to separate my feelings from my behavior. I will not be rude or disrespectful toward someone, but I just can’t find it in me to open up to someone I dislike. Instead, I try to leave them alone or at least avoid engaging in more than perfunctory interactions.
The irony is that people often said the reason they liked my boss was because he was so genuine. But was he?
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Polly here. As I was reading the first part of this, I was thinking, or wondering, about how he must have felt at the end of the day. Was it hard to keep up that level of “acting” toward everyone he met? Was it hard to act like you like everyone when you really don’t?
This also caused me to do some self-examination. It would be difficult for me to act like I like someone when I don’t. Like Linda, I try never to be disrespectful or rude. I’d say I am civil. But I also believe in being genuine with a person. Honesty is important to me.
Which then makes me wonder: Do you think “acting” like you like someone is dishonest? Or is it a good thing to do? Does acting this way foster positive energy? Or does it do the opposite by not being genuine to yourself and the energy around this?
Any thoughts?
