A lot of people are just cold, unsociable, not charismatic, don't buy into the latest social trend - and are therefore 'unlikable' to many.
It's possible to be 'perfectly good' and yet perceive as 'unlikable'.
Personally, I like those people, but the mob turns on them quickly.
Being needlessly callous, or mean, lording over people, excess egoism i.e. 'asshole' - this is unnecessary.
Being 'demanding' is not being an 'asshole'.
Firing people on the spot for missing this or that, is 'asshole'.
Emotionally, a lot of it can feel like the same thing, so it's confusing. And often people are a mix of both things, and are otherwise professionals, but let slip some emotional stuff now and again. The more demanding or terse a person is, the easier it is to cross the line into just being a jerk.
And it's not even necessary to be 'unlikable' either, but for 1/2 the population who tend to be 'people pleasers' maybe they need to learn that it's not just a popularity game, and the system would benefit from honest input.
My instinct says that Jobs and Musk are 10% nice, 80% terse, and 10% asshole.
Most of their actions seem to be on point, the kind of 'hard truth' actions that some people seem to admire in business types, but they can also be needless dks.
Some people are just plain callous jerks and actually have no business ability at all, and yet millions of people seem to believe their acting! Trying to think of an example ...
From the people I know who worked with Jobs, he was more than 10% asshole.
Being unwaveringly decisive (eschewing discussion) is often considered antisocial (although it's admired by some). Brutal honesty is considered "unnecessary" in the corporate environment. I believe this culture contributes to bureaucracy far and above the risk it mitigates.
For example, nobody wants to look at evidence that an long-established process is an unnecessary cost-sink. It's safer to leave it alone. Participants (and their allies) will perform all kinds of political and process acrobatics to defend their known knowns.
If you are jumping from company to company (which you should every few years outside your stock options), you can see how established companies have internal structures that prevent innovation and shoot themselves in the foot until whole departments are dismantled. At that point, most of the participants look at each other like "what happened?" or "this asshole came in and tore the dept apart".
It's a pain point of mine. The more money you make, the more you see this stuff and I'm usually the asshole brought in to break up the status quo (without much political support). I've been successful as often as I have failed. Jobs had much better positioning and was better at identifying the people and tools necessary to inspire change.
A lot of people are just cold, unsociable, not charismatic, don't buy into the latest social trend - and are therefore 'unlikable' to many.
It's possible to be 'perfectly good' and yet perceive as 'unlikable'.
Personally, I like those people, but the mob turns on them quickly.
Being needlessly callous, or mean, lording over people, excess egoism i.e. 'asshole' - this is unnecessary.
Being 'demanding' is not being an 'asshole'.
Firing people on the spot for missing this or that, is 'asshole'.
Emotionally, a lot of it can feel like the same thing, so it's confusing. And often people are a mix of both things, and are otherwise professionals, but let slip some emotional stuff now and again. The more demanding or terse a person is, the easier it is to cross the line into just being a jerk.
And it's not even necessary to be 'unlikable' either, but for 1/2 the population who tend to be 'people pleasers' maybe they need to learn that it's not just a popularity game, and the system would benefit from honest input.
My instinct says that Jobs and Musk are 10% nice, 80% terse, and 10% asshole.
Most of their actions seem to be on point, the kind of 'hard truth' actions that some people seem to admire in business types, but they can also be needless dks.
Some people are just plain callous jerks and actually have no business ability at all, and yet millions of people seem to believe their acting! Trying to think of an example ...