You WILL Be Misunderstood, Here's What To Do About It | Ep 224
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What's up guys, welcome back to Build. And today we're going to talk about embracing being misunderstood and disliked as a leader. The reason I want to talk about this topic today was it is really top of mind for me because, you know, it's funny is that I, you know, grew and sold my last business over the span of, you know, seven, seven and a half years. And

I remember by the end of it, I was like, "Wow, that was so hard. If I had known how hard it was going to be, like, gosh, would I have done it again?" And I was like, "Yeah, you know, it's like at the end of the day, you're kind of like, 'I would,' but you're like, 'Man, it would be tough because you know how hard it was.'" The way our brains work, right, punishment fades over time. You know, we start and I'm like, "God, I'm so excited. I miss having a company. I'm so excited to get into all this."

And, you know, the first couple of years, I'm like, I was ready for this. I remember this. I love being in the trenches. I love getting something started. I love going from zero to one. You know, it's exciting and uncomfortable, but I hadn't done that in like, you know, nine years. And so it was invigorating. And as our company has grown, you know, we've gone this last year from, gosh, I think we ended last year with maybe 27 employees. And now we have about 65. There have been different situations that have come up where I'm like, oh, my gosh, I remember why I was there.

I had such a hard time at different points in building my last company. And it was really all centered around this theme, which is there's so many times where the right decision, the best thing to do, the things that we needed to do to grow our business are things that cause us to be misunderstood and disliked, not by the greater public, not by an audience, not by friends, but by our team.

by people who we hire, by people who we invest in, by people who we genuinely want to help, by people who we pay money every week. And then we're like, how could it be that I do all these things for this person and they don't understand or they don't like me, right? And here's the thing. Leadership is about making decisions. The best leaders are the best decision makers. Not everyone will agree with those decisions. And there's a lot of people that won't even understand or try to understand them.

But the job of a leader is to make decisions despite that, despite knowing you're not always going to be supported, you're not always going to be understood, and you're not always going to be liked. And in the beginning, when everything's really small, it's really easy for everybody to understand all your decisions. But as you grow and you get bigger, it's much harder. It's not always best for the business that everybody has all the same information as you.

And I really, you know, as I was reflecting on this, because I had to make a series of hard decisions in the last couple months. And I, you know, it's like, sometimes I think my team thinks, gosh, does she know how? Yes, I know. I know who doesn't understand it. I know who doesn't like it. And I can tell the people who feel weird about it. Even if people don't say it, I can see by body language, by the way people show up, by the way people act, by the way people talk, you know, I'm intuitive enough. And, you know, I had to kind of take a step back because what I realized is I was really getting caught up in it.

And then I took a step back and then I remembered all the times in my last business this happened, especially as we got bigger and I had more people on the team because what happens, right? Like, why do we get misunderstood? I think like the two main reasons, right? One, we have to make tough decisions. And usually we make tough decisions that other people avoid. We come in and we make the decisions that nobody else wants to make. That's the job of the leader.

You see the full picture and your decisions are often grounded in facts and evidence and data, not emotions. Because you know that at the end of the day, you're the one leading this team and you have to make the right decision for them in the short and long term. And if you see that there's a person, there's a process, there's a project, there's a product that's not right for this business, and you know it's not going to end up there, then you've got to pull it out sooner. It's like a weed. It's like you want to pick it when it's small, not when it's gotten bigger.

And some people, the thing is, is they don't have the experience to see that it's a weed. They're like, it looks like a flower. And you're like, oh no, I've seen this before. It's a weed. And so you pluck it and people say, what are you doing plucking flowers? And you're like, no, no, no, it was a weed. But here's the thing.

until they for themselves see what they think is a flower turn into a weed. They don't know. And I made this tweet earlier that I think really encompasses this, which is sometimes being misunderstood or disliked doesn't mean you're wrong. Sometimes it means you're ahead. If you want to be a leader, if you want to be one or two steps ahead of people, what you have to realize is that that means they haven't come to the same realizations you have yet.

And so it might be six or 12 months until people really understand why you've made the decisions that you have. And so that's the first piece, right? People, leaders have to make tough decisions and especially the decisions that everybody else wants to avoid and sweep under the rug. The second is communication barriers.

Okay? As you get bigger, people usually misunderstand decisions because they don't get the why behind them. Because you have like a million reasons, right? But all they see is the impact of your decision. They don't see the evidence that led up because here's the thing, you can't share all the evidence. And that's what fucking sucks about business. It's like,

And I know this because I say it to my team, like, I wish I could tell you everything all the time, but it would cause issues in the long run. And so I can't. I tell you literally as much as I can without doing damage to our company or culture or respect of somebody else's privacy in life. What you have to see is that for people who don't have the context you have, they just see you make a decision and they don't like the immediate impact. Because oftentimes, the harder the decision, the worse the immediate impact is,

the better it is long-term. But all your team sees and all the people with no context see is the immediate impact. Things got worse. Something isn't as good. I don't like this. And then what happens is that people make quick judgments. They generalize. They say, you know what? I don't like this. I don't like what's happening. And then they think, gosh, this might be forever. And they think, fuck it. I don't know if I want to be here. And then they leave before they can see it work out.

And then what happens is they reinforce this loop that they believe that that action will lead to something bad, right? Or decisions like that in the future that somebody makes in a business will lead to something bad. I'll give you an example.

So when we acquired a business, gosh, it was two and a half years ago. You know, we come in as a growth partner. It is so seldom that we do any sort of restructure reorganization. In fact, that's like something we keep hands off. You know, we're not trying to hire and fire and place people in there. Well, we do hire people, but we're not making firing decisions. We're not even close enough to make those decisions. We help people once they bring them to us as founders.

One of the businesses that we acquired, we announced the acquisition. They announced it. They did it very well. And they had two people on the team who immediately put in their resignation. And I was like, what? And these were two key leaders. And I was so confused. I'm like, we did this by the book. We did it the right way. We communicated it well. Why are they quitting? I met with them. And the first lady I meet with, she's like, listen, this happened to my husband. And they said that they were just a growth partner. What'd they do? They come in and axed him.

And so, you know what? I'm leaving before this shit happens to me. And I was like, girl, you were one of the key people I wanted to keep. What? I was like, we're not coming in to reorganize this company. Like we have a key leadership team. Like you guys are doing well. We're growing. We doubled this year. Like, why would I do that? But you know, the thing is, is that she quit and then she never found out. She never found out that we fired nobody on the team. She never found out that things got better. She never found out that the company grew.

And forever, from this day on, she's just going to think every time a company comes in to do this, things get worse because of one experience. We can always quantify what we have to lose, but not what we have to gain. And especially not if we stick around long enough to see.

And so what you have to understand, and this is something that I'm also saying as a reminder to myself, is that people misunderstand decisions because they don't know the why behind them. They don't see the evidence. They only see the immediate impact. And sometimes what that means, this is the hard thing about hard things, guys, is that you've just got to wait it out as a leader. You've just got to hold out long enough for them to trust you again, for them to understand again, for them to realize in three to four to six months that you made the right decision.

But sometimes people don't stick around long enough for that, right? Now, here's the thing, and probably the second piece of this, which is like there's being misunderstood. There's being disliked and there's feeling like frustrated because you can't tell people what's really going on and you can't disclose everything in a company. The thing is, is that humans are hardwired to seek approval. And so as a leader, it feels incredibly isolating when you don't have it. When you're like, gosh, I approve of all of you and now I'm feeling like you don't approve of me.

And that is why the truth is being liked can't be the goal of leadership. Creating impact, solving problems, driving success, making the right decisions. Those are the goals of leadership, right? And here's the thing. Every time you make the right decision, no matter what, there is going to be someone who thinks it's wrong. Someone who doesn't like it. Someone who misunderstands it.

That's the cost of a decision. The cost of a decision is that there are going to be people that don't like it and misunderstand. That's why most people live their life in the backseat. They just don't make decisions. And guess what? They never have to be disliked. They never have to be misunderstood. They never have to worry about feeling isolated. They're not in control of their own lives. They don't create their own destiny, right? They're not forging a path forward. They're just allowing someone else to do it for them. And so the key that I have realized that has helped me

ground myself as a leader. And what I remind myself over and over and over again is, one, there's power and is empowering to be okay being misunderstood and to be okay being disliked, right? It's more important that I like me than it is other people like me, even if it's just for a short period of time. And I've had to separate my own worth from other people's opinions, right?

Right? Because what's worse than other people not liking me for a period of time is me not liking myself because I know I'm not doing the right thing. And if that means the cost of doing the right thing is that other people don't understand for a period of time, then that is okay. I can deal with that. And so this is how I really cope with that. Right? The number one is that I imagine I always am making decisions

with my values. I anchor myself in my values. And as long as I know that this decision aligns with my values, then I know I'm going to be okay. And that doesn't mean it's for everybody because everybody has different values, right? But the number one thing I do is every decision I make, and this reaffirms and confirms for me that it's okay to be misunderstood or disliked every time I make a decision, is I imagine that I, instead of having a board of directors, I say I have a board of values.

And every decision I make, I imagine myself like I'm in court and I'm presenting this decision to my values. And then I ask them, like, what do you think? Do you pass or fail? Right. Guilty, not guilty from each one. And I know that sounds so cheesy, but it is so helpful for me so that when I'm making a really hard decision that all my feelings inside are like, do not do it. Everyone's going to hate you. Nobody will understand. Like you're going to get people are going to be talking smack, like, you know, all this stuff. Right.

I still make that decision because I'm like, you know, screw how I feel, align with my values. That is what I think, right? I'm like, my feelings are gonna go all over the place because as a human, I wanna be liked, I wanna be misunderstood, I wanna be understood, I wanna be accepted. But I know that if I make decisions in accordance with my values, that's best for the long-term. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that I have accepted the trade-off, right? I realize that not being liked by everyone is the price of leadership, right?

And here's the thing. If your goal is to avoid criticism, then you're probably not making the right decisions. People who are swayed by the approval of others seldom make good leaders. I really want you to hear this. People who are swayed by the approval and need approval from others do not make the best leaders. They are nice, not kind. I don't know how many times I can say this.

It really irks me because it's something that I've had to like sear into my mind, which is like kind, not nice, right? Being nice and not kind, deceiving, sly, manipulative. Being kind instead of nice, loving, respectful, rounding. And so the trade-off of being a leader is that you're going to be criticized. An old mentor of mine used to say this, heard through a megaphone, seen through a microscope.

I can tell you that I've experienced this a lot lately because, you know, on my full team meetings, I always like to give them a little motivation. I always like to say something that's top of mind. I like to speak to things that are, you know, I would say like I like to speak to what's happening in the company. Damn near every week I get off my full team and somebody has feedback for me about how you said this. I think these three people took it the wrong way. And I'm like, gosh, damn it. It's like, but what am I supposed to do, guys? Not talk?

And how will I learn unless I get criticism? How will I learn unless I get feedback? And I can decide what to do with that. I can decide and say, you know what? They've got to learn. They've been at companies that don't do things this way. Or I've got to say, you know what? I don't want anyone to take it that way. Maybe I'll say it differently next time, right? But I'm not going to learn by doing nothing. Instead, I just accept the trade-off that by taking action, by making decisions, by being a leader, I will be criticized, right?

And then the last thing that I do, right, in managing this is I try my best to over-communicate the why. I know that I cannot make everybody happy and I cannot get everybody to understand, and that's okay with me, but I can at least share as much as I can transparently the reasons why behind I am going to do something. When people do something without explaining rationale and

sometimes it can seem short-sighted. It can seem abrupt. It can seem irrational, right? Because if you don't see the rationale behind it, then you just make your own assumptions and usually make assumptions that are bad. That's just how the brains work. The last thing that I try to do to at least mitigate the issue is over-communicate the why. I think that this is something that a lot of younger leaders don't do because they feel afraid. They're like, what if I overshare? What if I say something bad? How do I communicate? It's like, okay, well, being transparent is better than not.

And so in my experience, sharing as much as you can behind the rationale for a decision is imperative to getting your team to learn. Because here's the thing. Like I said, if you want to be a leader, you've got to be a couple steps ahead. But that means that people are a couple steps behind, which means if you want to pull them into the future, you need to teach them. And I think that explaining the rationale is one of the best things you can do.

Now, I will take a different approach to this, which is I will say this. What's the upside of being misunderstood or disliked? Okay? And this is what I have had to learn to associate these things with. One, being misunderstood usually means that you're pushing a boundary. Innovation, growth, success. You're getting outside your comfort zone. You're taking your company outside your comfort zone. Here's the thing. That feels...

Scary. It feels scary. It feels bad. It can feel unsettling to people, right? And so not everybody wants to go there. Look at, and this is something I have to think about all the time, like look at some of the greatest leaders and business leaders of all time, right? Think about Martin Luther King Jr. Think about Elon Musk. Think about, you know, Jeff Bezos. Think about Steve Jobs. Think about Oprah Winfrey. Their decisions were not just misunderstood. They were outright hated. But what's their legacy?

What's their impact? What happened now? What's the long term? Disliked in the short term, beloved in the long term. I want you to think about that. Disliked in the short term, beloved in the long term. Here's the thing. As a leader, you are constantly planting seeds and not everybody sees the full picture of the garden you're trying to grow. And not everybody will stick around to watch. That doesn't mean that you stop planting.

It just means that those people who stick around are going to get that much better of a garden. And so I say all this because maybe this is just the podcast that I wanted to hear myself say today because I needed a little reminder for myself that it is okay to be misunderstood and it is okay to be disliked. I just want to put this out there for all of you who are making tough decisions. You're making hard calls and you're doing things that are tough in the short term but better for the long term for your business. Good for fucking you. And like keep going because the last thing I'll say is this.

It's not about you. No matter how nice you are, no matter how kind you are, no matter how respectful you are, no matter how great of a leader you are, this will happen. It is the cost of being a leader. So with that, I hope you have an amazing day, week, month, walk, workout, car drive, Starbucks, stop, drive through, and I will see you on the next one.