The Likeability Trap

How to Break Free and Succeed as You Are

By: Alicia Menendez

Narrated by: Alicia Menendez

Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Be nice, but not too nice. Be successful, but not too successful. Just be likeable. Whatever that means?

Women are stuck in an impossible bind. At work, strong women are criticized for being cold, and warm women are seen as pushovers. An award-winning journalist examines this fundamental paradox and empowers listeners to let go of old rules and reimagine leadership rather than reinventing themselves.

Consider that even competent women must appear likeable to successfully negotiate a salary, ask for a promotion, or take credit for a job well done - and that studies show these actions usually make them less likeable. And this minefield is doubly loaded when likeability intersects with race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and parental status.

Relying on extensive research and interviews, and carefully examined personal experience, The Likeability Trap delivers an essential examination of the pressure put on women to be amiable at work, home, and in the public sphere, and explores the price women pay for internalizing those demands. Rather than advising listeners to make themselves likeable, Menendez empowers them to examine how they perceive themselves and others and explores how the concept of likeability is riddled with cultural biases. Our demands for likeability, she argues, hinder everyone’s progress and power.

Inspiring, thoughtful, and often funny, The Likeability Trap proposes surprising, practical solutions for confronting the cultural patterns holding us back, encourages us to value unique talents and styles instead of muting them, and to remember that while likeability is part of the game, it will not break you.

©2019 Alicia Menendez (P)2019 HarperAudio

Not for me

I’ll preface this by stating that I’m a woman of color. So I’m used to walking into any situation aware that most people won’t like me. I was interested in this book because I was expecting to get more tools but instead it was more explaining what the Likeability trap is. The book seems more for an audience of white males or females to teach them what it is vs how to help women get past this trap. I thought the performance of the audiobook was good but I didn’t receive any new information to help me grow which is what I was looking for in this book.

Ask the question Compared to Who?

It's a collection of stories of discrimination against women, both overt and subtle. I suggest starting with Chapter 10, actions that can be taken by organizations and individuals to reduce discrimination. It helps reveal the bias we all have against women because of expectations that women be helpful and supportive (not driven and successful). A good advice from the book is instead of saying "the person is not a good fit" (which really means the person is not like me), focus on the results that she had achieved and the value she can bring to the organization/job/project. And for anyone (not just women) who had received subjective criticism like "too demanding" or "too emotional," ask the questions "compared to who" and "how has that impacted my results?" Too often, a behavior is given a pejorative label like "aggressive" for a woman, while that exact same behavior is admired in men and labeled "ambitious" and "determined."

Get ready for another lecture on bias and lack of opportunities

The author reads the content and does a remarkable job. However, most of the book is spent lecturing you on readily available information regarding women in the workplace, biases, etc. By the time you get to content that could be helpful, I was pretty exhausted by the rhetoric. Not very empowering.

Must Read

Learned so much about my own biases. Must read for women and anyone who manages women. I know this goes against the point of the book, but Alicia is just so likeable! There was one situation she was describing and I started to wonder who had sent her information about me.

Must read for all.

This isn’t just for the professional women. Book was brought to my attention from my works book club. So grateful to have read this book!

nothing new

I was hoping for some pointers or anyone... it was basically just don't care

Great listening and learning

Alicia Menendez shares the tales and troubles faced by her and other modern women in the workforce. As a straught white male, I found it incredibly interesting (and depressing) to hear the horror stories, but it's important for men to hear and learn from books like and that we appreciate how hard it has been for women from day one through today. We can all learn valuable lessons from this book. Thanks for this terrific book, Alicia!

I kept hoping it would get better

This is a bit of an out of touch victim story. While there were some relatable scenarios illustrating the struggle we face as women in leadership roles, there were equally as many scenarios that were a stretch, painting women as victims of the patriarchy with no real solutions offered. The idea that we encourage women to bring their “whole” selves to work is awesome, but expecting to be effective with anyone while being bitchy, angry, moody, etc. is counterproductive and plain bad advice. Man or woman, nobody likes working with people who lead with those qualities. I’d have loved to see a personal development aspect, illustrating how to be more effective communicators and leaders rather than going victim to a rigged system.

Everyone needs to read this book!

I loved this book!! I really learned a great deal about the many challenges women face in navigating professional spaces and gained many new insights in how to talk about them. As a cis-gendered Black male, so much of the book resonated with my own experiences desperately wanting to be liked and watching my wife climb the rungs of corporate America to reach the top. "Tyranny of the shoulds" is now an active part of my lexicon as well as many other insights! I came away with many tangible action items that I will implement going forward to support women and other marginalized groups in my work. Alicia is a skillful writer and a great narrator, neither of which is an easy feat, but she handles both exceptionally well with ease and aplomb. Truly a joy to read/listen and hope to read more in the future!

Redundant and lacking

I had higher hopes for more insight on this topic, but the book felt flat, redundant and lacking a greater impact of meaning content.

Okay. Reaffirms some sad gender biases

Relatable book. Relatable stories. Sometimes I found it difficult to see how to solve the challenge, and am still not sure if there were any concrete tools to try and combat the leadership challenge that most women face.

Seems that we need to strap our seat belts on and settle in the knowledge that "it is what it is"? I'm not sure. I guess the idea is that for a lot of women there's a choice to make in each moment - do I choose to be seen as a leader or do I choose to be liked, because I can't have both.