What if they hate you?

How to lead through antipathy

“For the first six months, don’t do anything but dust the furniture.” 

I heard this advice given to a seminary student about what to do when hired as a new priest in a church. It’s good advice. Give people time to get to know you. Take time to understand the culture. Give the team time and space to process the change from one leader to another. Don’t do anything for six months but keep the place running.

Over here in the for-profit world, we don’t have that luxury. Many of us are brought into a new job or assignment with a mandate to change something. We’re given a list of KPIs to achieve in our first 90 days, sales or marketing goals. Numbers, metrics, targets to hit.

I’ve read lots of articles and books about those first 90 days, along with plenty of useful content about managing change in an organization. But rarely do they talk about what to do if you walk into a wall of resistance.

What do you do if they hate you before you even get there? Or they decide they hate you soon after you’ve arrived? What about the blockers, the resistors, the slow walkers, who impede your performance in ways that feel personal or vindictive?

I’ve been hated at job, and I’ve been loved. What I’ve learned is that sometimes what other people think of me isn’t in my control. If I am being professional, kind, and aware, and I have someone – a boss, or coach – who is able to give me feedback to make sure I’m being skillful, then I need to accept that some people aren’t going to like me.

If you are being brought in to change processes, or culture, or make people do anything differently, you are going to be disliked.

I find it helpful to use a change management frame. There’s a change management bell curve. At one end are the early adopters. A few key influencers in this group, which is usually small, can help move the entire group. The largest swell of the bell curve are people who will go along with the change if they can see the benefit to themselves or to the organization. At the other side are the smaller group of resistors, people who, for various reasons, are skeptical of change. You may never be able to win over these folks. People are always going to fall somewhere on the bell curve of reaction to change. Resistance to change is not the same as active dislike of a new leader. They can overlap, but here I’m considering what you do if your new team just hates your guts.

First, figure out which type of dislike you’re dealing with. Hate has many flavors. Here are a few.

A Blocker is resolutely determined to undermine you by not doing. Functional Blockers simply refuse to do tasks. They may have excuses or throw up roadblocks, or feign ignorance that you asked them to do anything in the first place.

Cultural Blockers undermine you in in conversations or meetings, usually starting with “let me play Devil’s Advocate for a minute…” They constantly argue against anything you say or do, almost reflexively, without good reason or for reasons that are territorial. Often, they set up an adversarial relationship between your team and theirs.

Then there is the Bigot. This person hates because of their prejudices towards people who are not like them, or not like they think others should be. This is awful, and something for HR, but let’s name that these people exist. If you are hated by a Bigot, be clear that this is about the Bigot, not you. Bigotry is really hard to mediate or change, especially when the bigotry is expressed primarily in microaggressions. Which, let’s face it, are never “micro” to the person on the receiving end.

There is the Projector. The Projector looks at you and sees their alcoholic mother or their abusive stepfather. Something about you reminds them of someone else and they don’t have the awareness – or enough therapy – to be able to understand that they are projecting past issues onto you like a movie screen. They might not be able to see you at all.

I once had a boss look at my shoes with revulsion. I was wearing practical, black lace up shoes.

“You can’t wear those shoes to work anymore,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because my ex- mother-in-law wore shoes like that. I hate her. And I hate those shoes. You can’t wear them anymore.”

That’s Projection.

There is the Doubter. This is a person who is initially resistant, but could come around. Often, they were very fond of the person who had your role before you. They miss their old boss or co-worker, and you just aren’t them. In the Hulu series The Bear about a Chicago restaurant, the character Tina, a line cook, is a Doubter when Carmen takes over the restaurant after the death of his brother. She misses her old boss and is none too pleased with the changes the new one is making.

In my experience, the Bigot is the hardest to deal with, and I’ve left more than one job after trying to get management to deal with persistent sexism to no avail. The Projector is also difficult. You can’t, in a work situation, get at who they are projecting onto you. Often, they have no self-awareness of what they are doing at all.

The best bet is to focus on getting the Doubters to believe and the Blockers to get on board.

For the Doubters, be clear about what is in it for them. In The Bear, Tina begins to learn new skills, and her increased competence, and confidence, gradually gets rid of her doubt. The carrot used to entice her is knowledge to increase her skills, as well as the connection with the other people who work at the restaurant. The team has changed, but they are still connected. No one tries to talk her out of her grief at change, or shame her for her initial resistance, but there is an ongoing invitation to try a new way of working. Which ultimately works.

For Blockers, you might need more stick than carrot. First, try to build a relationship and understand, if you can, what their objectives and concerns really are. Try to come to a place of shared goals and focus on those. But if they continue to block, you may need to reiterate their goals, or your shared goals, and institute some consequences for continued obstruction that keeps those goals from becoming reality.

Remember, what other people think about you is sometimes none of your business. Continue to be professional and compassionate, check with trusted mentors to make sure you are being skillful, and be patient with your team and yourself. Because it does really take about six months for a team and a new leader to adjust to one another.