About a week ago, Adam Grant, an author and professor of organizational psychology at the Wharton School, posted this simple question to his Twitter: “What’s the worst career advice you’ve ever received?” While I have been given a lot of great advice over the years, I posted what came to mind as one of the worst: “stop being so prepared.” After that Tweet became one of my most popular ever, I figured it was worth telling its story.

At one of my corporate jobs, I started as a manager in a division that had about 5 other managers reporting to a young, new director. I hate to bring in age, but I think it’s relevant here. As the managers went, there was a range of ages from about 30 to almost 60. Two of us were close to 30 while most of the rest were in their 50s.

Eager to prove that I deserved to be there, to be leading my team, I came to every leadership meeting ready to discuss the items on the agenda, often bringing a print out or something written to share. After several months, in a check-in with my boss, I shared with him that I had a feeling some of the managers didn’t like me. They were all polite enough, but I was so used to forming true relationships with my colleagues, which hadn’t happened. It was odd to feel like I was still being kept at arm’s length from some of my peers.

My boss didn’t disagree with my assessment. Instead, he suggested that the other managers probably felt a little uncomfortable around me, that I intimidated them (I could probably write a whole other blog post about that sentiment alone, but that’s for another time). His suggestion for counteracting this? Perhaps I should stop being so prepared in our leadership team meetings…or, I could be prepared, but shouldn’t make it so obvious by having papers/folders in front of me.

Sigh…

Ya’ll, my boss was a GREAT guy who has gone on to much success. In fact, we’re still in touch, so he may be reading this as we speak. But, he was also a newish, young manager himself. And, if I’m honest, he was probably right. They probably would have liked me better if I wasn’t so prepared. However, that doesn’t make it good advice.

We didn’t talk about it then (or at least I hadn’t heard of it), but women are often subjected to the double bind, i.e. seen as either well-liked or competent, but not both. In my case, being seen as competent was the exact thing that made me less well-liked. It was maddening. Eventually, I realized that my own values wouldn’t allow me to be knowingly mediocre in order to please others. In fact, I left the company and the team and can look back feeling proud of what I contributed.

Now, someone will say - why not act the part to form the relationships I wanted? Wouldn’t that have made me more successful, to build relationships with my peers? Sure, but at what cost to my own personal values? For someone else, maybe staying and finding a way to be liked would have worked. But, I had to be true to myself, to be in an environment where I felt like I could grow and develop.

My boss went on to get promoted and move up to quite senior level positions in a couple of different companies. As far as I know, he is BOTH well-liked AND competent. In the case of our conversation, I wish he had said something different. Perhaps, “You know what, you don’t have to be everyone’s best friend. You DO have to find a way to work with them, but if that’s already happening, that’s good enough. If they are uncomfortable because you bring out their own insecurities, that’s their problem. If it still bothers you, let’s talk about how you could bring this up to them if you want to address it head on. If not, keep on being you, because you are meeting or exceeding the expectations I have for you in the role and still have a lot of potential at this company. Your energy is better spent focused elsewhere.”

As for me? I can’t help it — I’d still like to be seen as well-liked AND competent. That being said, if I have to choose, I know which one will win out in the end in situations like this.