March 10, 2026
by Stephen T. Messenger
Would you want to sit next to yourself on a bus?
Dr. Carol Kinsey Gorman wrote about this question in a 2024 Forbes article titled The Power of Likability. In it, she tells a story about a recent college graduate who was interviewing for a prestigious company and got the job.
When she asked the applicant why she was hired over all the others, the person explained it was because she passed the “sit next to on a bus test.” In this theory, companies want to hire people they would feel comfortable sitting next to on a long bus ride. If the hiring team is going to spend countless hours in the workplace with this new person, it should feel like a treat, not a burden, to sit near them on a metaphorical bus.
Yes, competency matters. A lot. But so does liking the person we’re going to spend all day with, five days a week. Likability is an important part of being around other people. If we don’t want to sit next to someone on a bus for a few minutes, we wouldn’t want to work alongside them for years.
Which raises a bigger question. What actually makes someone likable?
Yeah, But Do You Like People?
Perhaps you have someone in your life who is truly likable. I do. Every time I’m around them, I leave feeling like a better version of myself and more motivated to conquer the world. I often wonder why they’re like that and if I am or could be too.
It reminds me of a phrase I use a lot. “If we want to be a leader, we have to do two things. First, we have to like people. Second, we have to do something about it. Dale Carnegie makes a similar argument in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People.
He tells a story about his dog, and it’s similar to mine. Every day I come home, my dog runs up to see me, happy as all get up. I like him because he likes me. Dogs win people over for a simple reason: they like us first.
Carnegie says, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by getting other people interested in you.”
He also tells the story of President Teddy Roosevelt, who knew every White House worker by name. He asked about their families, hobbies, and interests. In other words, he first liked them.
Then he had a habit of calling workers if he thought they’d be interested in something. He knew the valet’s wife loved rare birds, and once called her to tell her this bird was on the White House lawn. In other words, he did something about liking people.
But liking people isn’t just a feeling. It shows up in our specific behaviors.
Keys to Being Likeable
Podcaster Jennifer Cohen from Habits & Hustle talks about three keys to likability: empathy, authenticity, and enthusiasm. These are the characteristics people tend to display when they genuinely like other people.
Empathy. This trait is the ability to understand and share the feelings of those around us. Generally, people want to feel heard and understood. No one likes telling a story designed to evoke a certain emotion and receiving nothing in return.
To be empathetic, we should ask questions and take a genuine interest in what the other person is experiencing. We celebrate wins when they’re on a high, and we commiserate during lows when they’re feeling down. Empathetic people hear other people’s underlying feelings and try to understand why they feel the way they do. And as Cohen says, we should be empathetic even when we don’t agree with them.
Authenticity. The second characteristic is the quality of being real or true. No one likes a fake, and it’s important to be confident in the person we are. That means not trying to be like other people, not chasing something we don’t want just because the crowd does, and not pretending we are something we’re not.
Being authentic means knowing what we genuinely believe and staying both consistent and humble about those values. Authentic people tell the truth with kindness, admit when they don’t know something, and live out their value system. Research professor Dr. Brené Brown believes that vulnerability in sharing our thoughts and feelings is the start of authenticity. People just want to know we are honest and genuine.
Enthusiasm. Finally, no one wants to be around a “Debbie Downer.” If you recall the recurring SNL skit, Debbie can find the negative in every sentence spoken, even the most positive ones. Now imagine if we were the opposite. Now, I don’t mean fake optimism or ignoring reality, but sincere encouragement.
Enthusiastic people enter each workday excited to be there, give compliments to people, share credit, and find moments of joy even when things get tough. This isn’t about being fake happy all the time, but it is about not letting the stressors of life spill over negatively into other people. Ideally, when a person leaves our presence, they should feel better than when they arrived.
The Secret Superpower Everyone Already Knows
Nothing we’ve written about today is a secret. In fact, many of these lessons sound like the simple rules we learned in kindergarten: be kind, listen, and treat others well. When we genuinely like the people around us, they tend to like us back.
In today’s language, that means putting our phones away during conversations. It’s moving away from a computer screen when someone walks in the office. It’s introducing people to other people when acquaintances meet. It’s about remembering the details of other people’s lives and following up on them. But most importantly, it’s about being like our dogs.
They like us, want to run to us, and love being with us. If a dog could talk, it would want to know all about our day… and probably ask when dinner is. The love and affection a dog shows for humans is reciprocated. The reason is simple: dogs feel what we feel, they are unapologetically themselves, and they are genuinely excited to see us.
If we can live out this not-so-secret superpower that dogs have by being empathetic, authentic, and enthusiastic, or genuinely liking other people, we’ll probably pass the “sit next to you on a bus” test too.
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