[timacles]

People will never tell you if they like you or not and why

The emotional intelligence to pick up on that sub context is critical. Observe how they treat others, look for subtleties, think about them as people rather than your boss.

It really comes down to 2 things: if you had a beer with them would they enjoy your company; are you a good employee who’s not making them look bad by their managers.

[james_marks]

The ability to enjoy a beer with them is irrelevant.

The only question is, “Are you making them look good to their manager/customer/spouse/peers?”

Ultimately, that’s what you’ve been hired to do.

In a healthy context, you’re doing that by hitting your KPI’s, adding velocity, etc., but not necessarily.

[jmb99]

But that's missing the point. You can be doing all of those things but your manager still may not like you. Admittedly they're probably more likely to like you if you're a good employee, but if they like you and you're a subpar employee you're going to be much better off than if they don't like you. And, if you're a stellar employee, you'll likely be presented with more opportunities/more favourable tasks/etc than a stellar employee your manager doesn't like.

You can take the view of "I'm doing my job" but don't be surprised if those around you who are more liked by management get picked up for promotions/etc more than you. Most people (management included) are not 100% objective in their decision making, and someone liking you (or not) is going to influence their decisions involving you.

[manmal]

Thanks, that gives me something to think about. I guess being fully remote makes it a bit hard to pick up on these clues, but maybe I can make better use of the HQ visits.