One of the questions I hear most from women I work with is some version of: “Why does it feel like I have to choose between being taken seriously and being liked?”

I’ve thought about this for most of my career — and not just theoretically. As a PhD who spent 15 years in tech working with companies like Uber, Microsoft, Netflix and Google, I lived with this question. It started when I was 18, trying to figure out how to hold authority in largely all-male teams for a debating championship without becoming a version of myself that didn’t feel right.