There’s a colleague I remember from my negotiating days who everyone loved as he brought donuts every Friday, remembered birthdays, and never disagreed in meetings.
Pleasant guy but, when tough decisions needed to be made or real accountability was on the line, nobody looked to him.
They looked past him to the people they respected, even if those people weren’t particularly warm.
After decades in rooms where power and leverage determined outcomes, I learned this: Being liked and being respected require different behaviors.
The behaviors that make you likeable often undermine the very foundation of respect.
Respect comes from consistency, boundaries, and the willingness to have uncomfortable conversations; it comes from being the person others can count on when things get difficult and eliminating the behaviors that signal you’re more interested in avoiding conflict than in doing what’s right.
I’ve watched countless careers stall because people confused being pleasant with being valuable.
They thought if everyone liked them, respect would naturally follow.
It doesn’t work that way.
In fact, the opposite is often true: The most respected people in any organization are rarely the most popular at the holiday party.
1) Agreeing in public, then complaining in private
You’ve seen this person: They nod along in the meeting, say nothing when the problematic decision gets made, then spend the next hour at their desk telling anyone who’ll listen why it’s a terrible idea.
I spent years watching this dynamic poison teams.
The agreeable colleague who never pushes back publicly but becomes the chief critic privately, but what they don’t realize is that everyone sees through this behavior.
Your teammates know you’re the one undermining decisions after the fact, and your boss knows you lack the courage to speak up when it matters.
During one particularly tense negotiation, a team member did exactly this: Agreed to our strategy in the planning session, then spent the evening calling other team members to express doubts.
By morning, half the team was second-guessing our approach. We lost leverage because one person couldn’t voice concerns when they actually mattered.
Respected colleagues do something different.
They raise concerns in the room, when those concerns can actually influence outcomes.
Moreover, they understand that productive disagreement in the meeting is worth more than unanimous agreement followed by hallway sabotage.
2) Making promises you have no intention of keeping
“Sure, I’ll get that to you by end of day,” then end of day comes, end of week comes, and nothing appears.
No update, no explanation, just silence until someone has to chase you down.
This behavior destroys respect faster than almost anything else.
Why? Because it reveals that you either don’t respect other people’s time, or you’re so disorganized that your word means nothing.
Neither interpretation builds respect.
I learned early in my career that your reputation is built on the small promises.
Everyone shows up for the major deadlines; it’s the routine commitments that reveal character.
When you say you’ll review something by Thursday, or join a call at 2 PM, or send that introduction, these become the building blocks of how others see you.
The respected colleague under-promises and over-delivers. They know their capacity and don’t agree to things they can’t deliver.
When they do commit, it’s done. No reminders needed nor excuses offered.
3) Avoiding difficult conversations by staying silent
Your colleague’s work is substandard and affecting the team, your boss’s new policy has obvious flaws, and the project timeline is unrealistic; you say nothing because you don’t want to be seen as negative or difficult.
Silence feels safe, but it’s actually a reputation killer.
When you consistently avoid difficult conversations, people stop seeing you as someone with valuable input.
You become furniture in the room, present but not influential.
The most respected person in my former organization was someone who could deliver hard truths without making them personal attacks.
She had mastered the ability to say, “I see a problem with this approach” without anyone feeling attacked.
She focused on the work and offered solutions.
This skill is learnable: Start with small stakes situations, and practice being the person who names the obvious problem everyone else is dancing around.
You’ll be surprised how often people are relieved when someone finally says what needs to be said.
4) Taking credit for collaborative work
“I managed to solve that client issue,” “I came up with the solution,” and “I delivered the project on time.”
When every success story starts with “I” and never includes “we,” respect evaporates.
I’ve watched talented people destroy their reputations by consistently claiming sole credit for team achievements.
They think they’re building their brand and showing their value. Instead, they’re advertising their insecurity and demonstrating they can’t be trusted in collaborative efforts.
The psychology here is straightforward: When you claim undue credit, everyone who actually contributed knows you’re lying.
They tell others and, soon, your reputation precedes you, and not in the way you hoped.
Respected colleagues do the opposite.
They spotlight others’ contributions and say “Sarah’s analysis made this possible,” or “The team really pulled together on this one.”
Paradoxically, this makes them appear more confident and more valuable, not less.
5) Gossiping about colleagues who aren’t present
Nothing signals untrustworthiness quite like being the person who shares private information or criticizes absent colleagues.
You might think you’re building bonds with your audience, but you’re actually telling them exactly how you’ll talk about them when they’re not around.
During my negotiation days, I learned that information discipline was everything.
The person who could keep confidences—who didn’t trade in gossip—became the person everyone trusted with important information.
That trust translated directly into influence and respect.
When someone starts gossiping to you, you have a choice: You can participate and signal that you’re equally untrustworthy, or you can redirect the conversation and establish yourself as someone with professional boundaries.
Guess which choice respected colleagues make?
6) Being consistently unprepared for meetings
You show up without reading the pre-read, you ask questions that were answered in the email invitation, and you scramble to understand context that everyone else already has.
This is about signaling that you don’t think the meeting, the topic, or the other attendees are worth your preparation time.
I once worked with someone who treated every meeting like an improvisation exercise.
Smart person, likeable personality, but completely unreliable in any situation requiring advance thought.
Eventually, people just worked around him and he was included in meetings but not in decisions.
Preparation is a form of respect as it says, “This matters enough for me to invest time before we meet.”
It allows you to contribute meaningfully rather than playing catch-up while everyone else tries to make progress.
7) Saying yes when you mean no
This might be the most destructive behavior of all: You agree to take on work you don’t have time for, say yes to meetings you know you’ll try to escape, and commit to deadlines you know you’ll miss.
This is all because saying no feels uncomfortable in the moment.
However, here’s what actually happens: Your yes becomes worthless and people learn they can’t count on your agreements.
They start building in buffer time for your delays, invite backup people to meetings you’ve confirmed, and stop seeing you as reliable.
The respected colleague has mastered the professional no.
“I can’t take that on without dropping something else—which would you prefer?” or, “That timeline doesn’t work with my current commitments, but I could do it by this date instead.”
These responses establish boundaries while still being helpful.
Closing thoughts
Respect is built through consistent, daily choices to be direct, reliable, and trustworthy.
It requires choosing temporary discomfort over long-term reputation damage.
The behaviors that earn respect aren’t always comfortable.
Speaking up in meetings, delivering hard truths, and saying no when necessary; these create friction in the moment, but that friction is the price of being seen as someone whose opinion matters, whose word means something, whose presence changes outcomes rather than just fills seats.
Start with one behavior and pick the one that makes you most uncomfortable, because that’s probably the one holding you back most.
Practice it in low-stakes situations first. Watch how people’s responses to you shift, slowly but unmistakably, from pleasant indifference to genuine regard.
