Do effective leaders need to be likable? Elon Musk, Marc Cuban and other big names weigh in

Do you have to be liked to be a good leader?

Well, that’s a debate a few leaders just had on X (formerly Twitter). My colleague Eleanor Pringle chronicled an X thread posted on Aug. 23 between Spotify CEO and cofounder Daniel Ek, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk, and Shark Tank star and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

It was sparked by Ek’s post about his “guiding motto,” a quote by George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” 

“I am not sure about other entrepreneurs, but for me being unreasonable is a difficult thing,” Ek wrote. “Like many others, I struggle with wanting to be liked.”

The other CEOs took turns weighing in. Some agreed and others disagreed with Ek’s sentiment. “I have overcome the desire to be liked,” Musk quipped in his reply. You can read all about it here. 

So, does being a likable leader still matter?

“Did it ever really matter?” Edith Hamilton, a CFO executive coach, and founder of NEXT New Growth, tells me. “Only to the extent that you need to win over your peers and members of the board, and avoid disincentivizing your team. My experience as an executive coach is that some leaders are pre-wired to want to go out of their way to please, while for others this is not the driving force.”

“There are certain universal traits or behaviors that are often associated with being ‘likable,’” says Nicole Price, CEO of Lively Paradox, a professional coaching business.” A long list includes “a good communicator, genuine, funny, considerate, respectful,” Price says. However, she had found that “chief among the likability traits is empathy—understanding and sharing the feelings of another, being compassionate,” Price says. 

“Instead of telling people that being a likable leader still matters, I prefer to ask people to think of their favorite three leaders,” she explains. “Then I ask them to give me at least 10 characteristics of that person that epitomizes why they chose that leader as their favorite.” 

A likable leader does help attract talent to a company, according to Hamilton. “It comes across as being a leader with very high emotional intelligence,” who can make others feel safe, as opposed to a hard, charging leader, she explains. “The CFOs and other C-level executives I coach are absolutely drawn to a CEO who seems to have those hallmarks,” she says.

‘It goes beyond mere charm’

But we’re in a time where stakeholders and customers are increasingly holding company leadership accountable, and using social media is one of the quickest ways to do so. Surely even likable leaders find this dynamic challenging.

“C-suite leaders often grapple with the balance between being likable and driving high-performance teams,” Price says. “Likability goes beyond mere charm,” she explains. “It’s a nuanced blend of empathy, clarity, accountability, and genuine connection.”

Hamilton shares a similar perspective. “Leaders who have a strong drive to be liked or to please others absolutely need to balance it with three other leadership behaviors,” she says. They need a clear articulation of their values, be able to balance the drive for likability with a clear set of guiding principles, and also consistency and predictability—”Say what you mean, and mean what you say, and don’t shy away from following through,” Hamilton says.

So, what’s your take? Should leaders be concerned about whether or not they’re liked? Send me an email.

Have a good weekend.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Big deal

Employee burnout among the U.S. workforce remains high (45%), but continues trending downward, according to a new report by Eagle Hill Consulting research. Burnout has dropped during the past year (49% in August 2022) and more substantially since the early months of the pandemic (58% in August 2020). Younger workers (52%) and women (48%) continue to report the highest levels of burnout. The survey, conducted by Ipsos from Aug. 3–8, included 1,347 respondents from a sample of employees across the U.S. 

Going deeper

Here are a few Fortune weekend reads:

"Nvidia’s A.I.-fueled profit beat has investors cheering—but a deeper analysis shows serious valuation problems" by Shawn Tully

"Peter Thiel launched a student newspaper 36 years ago. It has since become one of the surest paths to success in Silicon Valley" by Jessica Mathews

"A.I. could boost earnings nearly 20% by replacing human jobs, Goldman says. These are the short- and long-term winners of the boom" by Will Daniel

"Mark Zuckerberg’s intense exercise routine that got him in fighting shape—from Brazilian jujitsu to a CrossFit strength circuit" by Alexa Mikhail

Leaderboard

Some notable moves this week:

Shannon Eisenhardt was named CFO at Reckitt, effective Oct. 17. Jeff Carr, CFO and executive director will retire as of March 31, 2024. Eisenhardt will also be appointed to the board as an executive director. She will join Reckitt from NIKE, Inc., where she currently serves as CFO of NIKE Consumer, Brand and Marketplace. Eisenhardt led finance for NIKE North America, and NIKE Emerging Markets. 

James Kehoe was named CFO at FIS (NYSE: FIS), a financial services technology company, effective Aug. 21. Kehoe will succeed Erik Hoag, who is leaving the company at the end of the year. Kehoe joins FIS from Walgreens Boots Alliance, where he served as EVP and global CFO since 2018. Before that, he was Global CFO and a board director for Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. 

Tony Iskander was named interim CFO at Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (NYSE: AAP), effective Aug. 18. Iskander succeeds Jeff Shepherd, who departed from Advance, effective Aug. 18. Iskander served as the company’s senior vice president, finance and treasurer since 2020. Before joining Advance in 2017, he spent more than a decade at Hillrom in various finance roles. A search is being initiated to identify the company’s next CFO. 

Dror Heldenberg, CFO at Valens Semiconductor (NYSE: VLN), a provider of connectivity solutions, will be stepping down to pursue other opportunities, effective Sept. 1. Yael Rozenberg Haine, VP of finance, will be appointed interim CFO. Before joining the company in 2013, she served in various finance positions at Broadcom and at Provigent, which was acquired by Broadcom.

Ana Sirbu was named CFO at LeanTaas, Inc., a provider of software solutions for hospital and infusion center operations. Lloyd Martin, who served as CFO since 2017, will take on the newly created role of chief administrative and risk officer. Before joining LeanTaaS, Sirbu was the CFO of Nitro Software and BlueVine. Her previous roles include three years at Google Capital and working as a technology investor at Silver Lake.

Cindy Anderson was named CFO at Vistagen (Nasdaq: VTGN), a late clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, effective Aug. 21. Anderson will succeed Jerrold Dotson who is retiring. Anderson joins Vistagen from Alnylam Pharmaceuticals where she served as the chief accounting officer, focusing on strategic and financial operations. 

Overheard

“I just think he’s going to play it about as down the middle as possible. That just gives him more optionality. He doesn’t want to get himself boxed into a corner one way or another.”

—Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities America, told CNBC regarding Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's speech later today at the central bank’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo. "With inflation decelerating and the economy still on solid ground, Powell may feel less of a need to guide the public and financial markets and instead go for more of a call-‘em-as-we-see-’em posture toward monetary policy," CNBC reported.