We all want to be liked and respected, but we can’t always have both. When speaking with leaders who have a strong desire to be liked, I ask them if they would rather be respected or liked, and they always reply hastily with, “respected, of course!”

Here are the different outcomes of being liked vs respected:

• Short term vs long-term satisfaction: When you desire to be liked,you attempt to make someone happy in the moment. You say what they want to hear and do what they want to do. Do you have people in your life who you like but don’t respect? If you do, you know there is something missing. You probably will never feel super close to that person because deep down you don’t respect them. However, when you are respected, you establish yourself in the long-term with others. As Charlie Houpert, author of Charisma On Command says, “What wins people’s respect is not always what they like in the moment.”

• People pleasing vs healthy boundaries: When you desire to be liked over respected, you become a people pleaser. You will do and say whatever it takes to make and keep someone else happy. As a result, people take advantage of you, because they know they can. And it’s not only selfish, greedy or mean people taking advantage of you, it’s human nature to take advantage of people pleasers! When you have boundaries, and you establish these boundaries with kindness while protecting those boundaries, people will respect you.

• How people really feel about you: When you want to be liked, you don’t know how others really feel about you. When you are respected, you know that they value you as a person.After I became an adult and would meet my parents for dinner or traveled somewhere with them, they expected me to pay my own way. Would I have liked it if they always picked up the tab? After all, they could afford to do it. Of course, I would have! But I respected that they chose not to. And they knew that when I spent time with them it was because I wanted to and not because I was going to get a free meal.

• Self-respect: When your goal is to be liked, you wear an invisible sign on your forehead that says that you don’t respect yourself. And do you really want to be known as a person who doesn’t respect yourself? I don’t know of anyone who thinks a lack of self-respect is an attractive trait. Taking the path of being respected over being liked by others is proof that you respect yourself.