EP #082: 90% of Executives Hate LinkedIn

About 90% of the executives we work with would never post on LinkedIn if it weren't a business objective. One prospect put it plainly when we first spoke. "Social media is something I actively try to avoid," he said. "I think there's some inhibitions I'm going to need to shed."

He was describing the same frustration I hear from almost every client, and most of them can name exactly what makes LinkedIn feel so uncomfortable.

Spending an Hour on a Post That Gets Three Likes

That's the complaint I hear most often. You put real effort into an idea, craft it carefully, hit publish, and watch it disappear without a trace while a colleague's throwaway thought gets hundreds of comments. Friends text to give you a hard time about something you shared, which makes the next post feel even harder to write.

And the frustration builds. An executive stares at their analytics after a post dies, wonders if anyone even noticed they published that week, and telling them to just push through it doesn't actually help them do it.

After working with hundreds of executives on this problem, I've noticed something consistent. Every single one of them has already developed the capacity to tolerate exactly this kind of discomfort. 

And they developed that capacity through leadership.

You've Already Done Harder Things Than This

Think about what leadership actually requires:

• Taking unpopular stances in boardrooms when you believe you're right, even when the room pushes back. 

• Delivering hard news to employees who don't want to hear it, then dealing with the fallout. 

• Making calls that could go either way and owning the outcome publicly, even when the outcome is bad.

LinkedIn asks for that same willingness to be uncomfortable, applied in a context that feels foreign. You're putting your ideas into the world to be judged, publishing consistently even when results feel invisible, and accepting that you'll sometimes be wrong in front of your professional network.

You already have the capacity to tolerate this discomfort. The context is just unfamiliar.

The First Few Months Are the Hardest

Every client I've worked with describes the same pattern. At the beginning, every piece of content feels heavy because every metric matters too much and every negative reaction stings.

Then the weight starts to lift. The process becomes familiar, the stakes feel lower, and publishing stops requiring the mental energy it once did. The discomfort doesn't disappear entirely, but it becomes manageable.

If you quit in the first few months, you'll never experience that relief. You'll only know the heavy phase, so you assume LinkedIn will always feel this hard.

Tolerating Short-Term Discomfort for Long-Term Results

I don't tell clients they'll learn to love LinkedIn. Some do, but most don't.

Instead, I tell them the discomfort is real, it gets easier, and the willingness to push through it builds something that matters over time. You start walking into meetings where your reputation precedes you, getting complimented at conferences by people who never liked or commented on a single post, and building credibility that keeps accumulating month after month.

The 90% who hate LinkedIn but post anyway have figured out the same thing. Tolerating the discomfort requires the same discipline that got them into leadership positions in the first place.

And the payoff is worth it.

— Justin

Justin M. Nassiri | Founder & CEO
M: 650.353.1138 | E: [email protected]
250 Fillmore St Suite 150, Denver, CO 80206
www.ExecutivePresence.io

Executive Presence specializes in helping top-tier executives boost their visibility, activate their network, and position themselves as thought leaders via our premium, fully-managed LinkedIn service.

Our unique process involves ex-McKinsey, BCG, and Bain consultants conducting monthly hour-long interviews with our clients, and turning them into impactful daily LinkedIn posts to establish their unique voice and authority. On average, our clients see a 500% bump in engagement in their first 30 days with us. Data is continuously analyzed to improve engagement and identify impactful messaging that you can use for conferences, podcasts, and internal communications.