There is a quietly corrosive idea embedded in the way we talk about human relationships, especially in workplaces, families, and even faith communities: the belief that we can love someone without liking them. “I love them, but I don’t have to like them,” we say, as if love were a moral obligation we perform with gritted teeth.
But this belief is not just outdated, it’s dangerous. It empties love of its emotional substance and erodes its capacity to create meaningful connection. Historically and today, this idea has excused coldness in families, cruelty in institutions, and apathy in professional communities. It allows people to withhold empathy while claiming moral high ground. It lets us disengage emotionally while maintaining the appearance of virtue.
In truth, the notion that love can exist without liking deprives love of its most transformative power: the ability to humanize the other person.
When we strip liking out of love, we end up with a sterile concept, a kind of performative benevolence that’s more about duty than connection. In workplaces, it manifests as “inclusive” language without inclusive behavior. In families, it justifies emotional distance behind a facade of loyalty. In faith communities, it permits tolerance that never becomes true compassion.
Love Without Liking Isn’t Neutral, It’s Harmful
When we treat love as something detached from genuine regard, we turn it into a hollow virtue. This kind of love becomes abstract, sanitized, and ultimately ineffective. It slips into a counterfeit version: all principle, no presence. It masks discomfort with politeness and glosses over tension with clichés. But real love doesn’t gloss over differences, it leans into them, fueled by the curiosity and appreciation that only genuine liking can offer.
Transformative Love Begins with Liking
To love someone in a way that heals, empowers, and transforms requires us to like them. Not in the superficial sense of enjoying the same music or personality traits, but in the deeper, more human sense: choosing to value who they are, becoming curious about what makes them unique, and discovering something we enjoy about being in their presence.
Liking invites empathy. It makes vulnerability possible. It softens judgment and enables us to see others as dynamic, evolving people, not fixed identities. Without liking, love becomes distant. Cold. Alienating.
Liking Is a Skill, and a Growth Mindset Essential
The good news is that liking is not just a feeling; it’s a skill. And it’s deeply connected to a growth mindset, the belief that people can change and develop through effort, feedback, and time. With a growth lens, we stop asking, “Do I like them?” and start asking, “What could I grow to appreciate in them?” This subtle but powerful shift moves us from critique to curiosity, from separation to engagement.
It’s in this spirit of curiosity that empathy grows. Our brains reward this shift too: liking activates the same neurochemical systems as trust and belonging. Love, when grounded in liking, becomes more than moral duty, it becomes emotionally intelligent connection.
In the Workplace: Love That Works Begins with Liking
This is especially true in our workplaces, where cultural differences, divergent personalities, and varied lived experiences often create friction. When leaders hide behind detachment in the name of “professionalism,” they miss the deeper truth: that real leadership is emotional, and that high-performing cultures are built on genuine regard.
A leader who only loves their team, on principle, but doesn’t like them in practice, may succeed in creating compliance, but never connection. But a leader who takes time to understand, appreciate, and enjoy their team members creates belonging. And belonging fuels trust, innovation, and discretionary effort, the extra energy people give when they feel seen and valued.
Unconditional Love Needs Liking to Thrive
Unconditional love isn’t passive. It’s not just about enduring someone; it’s about engaging with them. It’s a commitment to seeing worth beneath flaws, to investing in growth rather than demanding perfection. And that kind of love is only possible when we choose to like, not once, but again and again.
Learning to like begins with attention. We can’t appreciate what we don’t notice. Observe what is interesting, admirable, or simply human about the person in front of you. Ask better questions, not just about tasks, but about values and stories. Practice generous interpretations. And most of all, reflect on what our resistance to liking might be teaching us about ourselves.
Want a practical and doable growth mindset approach to transforming divisiveness into delightful! One we can all do today and in so doing we can lower the anger temperature and raise the courageous step forward! I’m referring to personal and collective conflict as the problem, neuroplasticity as the brain fact and stronger relationships across differences as the possibility.
Love Without Liking is Light Without Heat
To be clear: love without liking isn’t just incomplete, it’s ineffective. It lacks the warmth that fosters safety, the spark that drives growth, and the presence that builds trust. Love that includes liking is the kind that listens well, forgives deeply, and stretches far.
When we grow into this more integrated love, the kind that includes liking, we unlock transformation. We become more emotionally agile, more attuned to others’ potential, and more grounded in our own. And those around us, especially those we once deemed unlikable, often rise to meet the dignity our liking offers them.
Love that does not include liking is like light without heat: technically present, but unable to warm or grow anything. In contrast, love that commits to liking, slowly, imperfectly, but sincerely, becomes a fire: alive, generous, and strong enough to change us all.
In our families, workplaces, and communities, may we not just love in word, but in warmth. May we choose to like, curiously, intentionally, and wholeheartedly, so that our love can truly do the work it was meant to do.
Notes:
Foundational Roots: Where the Concept Draws From
• Psychological Theories of Attachment and Affection
1.In attachment theory (Bowlby, Ainsworth), love involves emotional attunement and safety, but genuine affection or “liking” is often implied more than named. Secure attachment arises not just from caregiving, but from emotional responsiveness and delight.
2.The Liking Principle sharpens this: it’s not enough to be cared for, you must be enjoyed to feel securely loved.
• Humanistic Psychology
1.Thinkers like Carl Rogers emphasized unconditional positive regard, accepting others without judgment. The Liking Principle aligns with this but insists that regard must include appreciation, not just tolerance.
2.Rogers’s model focused on empathy and acceptance, but not always on active enjoyment or engagement. The Liking Principle expands the humanistic frame by elevating mutual enjoyment as transformative.
• Moral and Religious Teachings
1.Many traditions say “love your neighbor,” even your enemy, but usually treat liking as optional. Love becomes duty, while liking is preference.
2.The Liking Principle critiques this divide, arguing that this disembodied, duty-based love risks being hollow or even harmful when it lacks authentic regard and curiosity.
• Growth Mindset Theory (as central to Weber’s internationally rewarded learning and leading approach)
1.Weber’s Mita Growth Mindset Approach ties in directly. The Liking Principle reflects a growth-oriented belief that people are worth liking because they can grow and be understood over time, not just because they deserve love in the abstract.
Where It Becomes Distinct: A New Contribution Becomes Evident
The Liking Principle, as a distinct and integrated growth mindset concept, is not formally established in psychology or leadership literature. I am articulating a new insight here, discovered within my Mita growth mindset approach to deeper and more thoughtful communication.
•It flips the narrative: instead of “you can love someone without liking them,” it proposes that liking is what makes love felt, safe, and transformational.
•It calls out performative love in workplaces and communities, where people are “included” but not seen, heard, or enjoyed.
•It reframes empathy as active liking, not passive tolerance.
•It identifies liking as a learnable, ethical practice essential for unconditional love to be genuine.
The Liking Principle as integral to Mita Growth Mindset Approaches, is the idea that genuine liking is essential to love if that love is to be emotionally transformative, healing, or meaningful. It challenges the long-held belief that we can, or should, love others without having to like them. According to this principle, love without liking becomes performative, abstract, or hollow.
Key Components of the Liking Principle:
•Liking is foundational to real connection. Love that does not involve liking becomes detached and superficial. Liking brings warmth, attention, and emotional presence that make love effective and felt.
•Liking is deeper than preference. It’s not about enjoying someone’s personality or shared interests. It’s about choosing to value their humanity, noticing their strengths, and staying curious about their story and growth.
•Liking is a skill, not a fixed feeling. Like empathy or patience, liking can be cultivated. It grows through attention, generous interpretation, curiosity, and time. It’s a posture, not just a preference.
•Liking transforms environments. In workplaces, families, and communities, people thrive where they are not just respected but liked. Liking builds belonging, trust, and collaboration far more effectively than obligation or tolerance ever can.
•Liking fuels growth and feedback. When we like someone, we’re more likely to invest in their growth, offer meaningful feedback, and believe in their capacity to change. It’s what moves love from sentiment to action.
In short: The Liking Principle asserts that liking is not optional, it is the emotional engine that makes love real, resilient, and transformative.
The Liking Principle, as used here, is a foundational concept asserting that genuine liking is essential to love’s emotional and transformative power, is an emerging idea that builds on, but goes beyond, traditional psychology, moral philosophy, and relationship science. Here’s a breakdown of where its roots lie and how it diverges into new, original ground: While rooted in established thought, the Liking Principle is a fresh synthesis, and potentially a core tenet of my Mita model, particularly useful if we’re working to reform how love and growth are understood in leadership, business, education, family and community.
If we claim to love all people, but don’t actively like them, our relationships can become emotionally hollow.
Genuine liking expresses itself in tangible, observable behaviors that signal warmth, engagement, and value. Below are five practical practices or evidences that indicate we truly like someone (or are learning to):
1. We choose to spend quality time together, freely and without obligation.
Liking shows up when we want to be around someone, not just when we have to. We make time, not just keep appointments.
Evidence: We initiate time together, linger in conversation, or feel energized by their presence.
In contrast, tolerance tends to check boxes, showing up out of duty, not desire.
2. We show curiosity about their story, values, and uniqueness. When we like someone, we become curious—not just about what they do, but who they are.
Evidence: We ask questions beyond surface-level. We remember details. We want to understand what matters to them.
Liking fuels attentiveness; indifference ignores or generalizes.
3. We enjoy their presence and show it through warmth, humor, and ease. Liking generates emotional warmth. It shows up in how relaxed, open, or even playful we become.
Evidence: We laugh together. We smile more. There’s mutual enjoyment or even inside jokes.
Where liking is present, relational space feels safe and even energizing.
4. We speak positively about them when they’re not around. Liking isn’t just about how we behave face-to-face; it shapes our mindset and words when they’re absent.
Evidence: We give the benefit of the doubt. We advocate for their strengths. We avoid gossip or belittling.
Genuine liking resists dehumanization in private and public spaces alike.
5. We invest in their growth and well-being. When we like someone, we want good for them, and we’re willing to contribute to it.
Evidence: We offer encouragement, constructive feedback, or practical help, not because we have to, but because we believe in their potential.
Liking supports without controlling; it wants to see others flourish on their own terms.
6. We practice generous interpretation of their quirks or flaws. We assume good intent. We notice what’s human, not just what’s frustrating.
Evidence: We don’t fixate on their shortcomings; instead, we see complexity, humor, or growth behind their behavior.
In Summary:
If we claim to like people, we must live it. These five practices are the tangible proof of liking, far beyond abstract love or polite tolerance. They create emotional safety, unlock trust, and lay the groundwork for real transformation in relationships and in work, worship and wellness communities.
Drawing from the insights in “The Liking Principle: Why Relationships Fail and We Feel Stressed at Work,” explore five reflective questions designed to inspire deeper inner work and bridge the concepts of grace and neuroscience. Each question is accompanied by a brief suggestion to guide our exploration:
1. How might I shift from viewing relationships as obligations to opportunities for genuine connection through appreciation and curiosity?
(Suggestion: Begin by identifying specific qualities or actions in others that you genuinely admire or find interesting. This practice can rewire your brain’s social circuits, fostering empathy and reducing stress.)
2. In what ways can I cultivate the skill of ‘liking’ others, especially those I find challenging, to enhance mutual understanding and collaboration?
(Suggestion: Engage in active listening and seek to understand the perspectives and experiences of others. This approach can activate neural pathways associated with trust and belonging, strengthening interpersonal bonds.)
3. How does separating ‘liking’ from ‘loving’ impact my relationships, and what steps can I take to integrate both for more authentic connections?
(Suggestion: Reflect on instances where you’ve expressed love without genuine liking. Consider how integrating sincere appreciation can transform these relationships, promoting emotional intelligence and reducing workplace stress.)
4. What daily practices can I implement to recognize and value the unique contributions of those around me, fostering a culture of inclusivity and respect?
(Suggestion: Take time each day to acknowledge and express gratitude for the efforts and strengths of your colleagues or team members. This habit can enhance positive neural associations and promote a supportive environment.)
5. How can embracing a growth mindset in my interactions encourage me to see beyond immediate judgments and appreciate the evolving nature of individuals?
(Suggestion: Approach each relationship with the belief that people are capable of growth and change. This perspective can shift your focus from criticism to curiosity, encouraging deeper connections and personal development.)