Alison Fragale’s brain is filled with data. Data that, while driven by facts, feels more like an interesting conversation at a dinner party than a collection of graphs with lots of percentages.
If her graphs of power, status, negotiation and influence—which Fragale has been studying and teaching for the past 20 years at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School—were people, they would be the brightly dressed, cool party guests everyone wants to sit next to.
We would call them “likeable badasses”—the people she named her book after—because being both, she says, gets you a seat at all the right tables.
No doubt, Fragale would be at the head of those tables. Not only is Fragale instantly likeable, but she possesses knowledge from which people—women, in particular—can benefit.
Though she’s quick to point out that her book is not another rightboss script, as none of the science in her book is gender-specific.
“Fundamentally, the science and the strategies are just things human beings would benefit from doing,” she says.
But there is no denying that her findings hold weight in women’s lives: As individuals and as a society, we have primarily focused on increasing women’s power while neglecting their status.
She got clarity around this fact while teaching professionals and business school students to be negotiators, influencers and advocates. Though she saw mostly men in those audiences, it was the women who approached Fragale after class.
“My day job was being a behavioral scientist, not only producing research, but reading all the research that other people were producing,” she says. “That wasn’t just helping me be a researcher, and it wasn’t just helping me be a teacher. It was helping me be a professional because I was getting, firsthand, all this evidence that exists in our field. And I would start to think, How could I use that finding?... So when women started coming to me, I would say things like, ‘OK, well, there’s this study that shows similarity attraction. So, if you can find a commonality with your audience, even though you might look different, you could really use that to your advantage.' And as those light bulbs would go off, it made me realize two things: One is [that] women had challenges that men may not have had, and two, that they didn’t feel like they had any good evidence-based place to turn to get an answer.”
Places that include TED Talks, where Fragale discovered 608 videos focused on women/gender and power and only 388 about women/gender and respect/status.
Status—how much we are respected and valued by others—is something many people may think of as earned, but Fragale says it’s not about trying to win something or beat other people to prove your value. “In our context, to win means to overcome,” she says. “Gender can be a source of status disadvantage, but it doesn’t have to be. When we know the science and use it to enact strategies that remove gender as a barrier, we’ve won. And while we’re winning, the women around us can win, too.”
She says she wrote Likeable Badass with women in mind because it’s an audience she cares about. “One of the things I think that is true about this book is it’s not a different set of rules that we’re creating. It’s explaining the rules of an unfair game and giving women tools to succeed in that.”
How You Talk about Yourself Matters
Many women have been taught that showcasing achievements can come across as bragging, but how will anyone know the great things you do if you don’t tell them? Telling your story is important.
“Do you know what your boss or your subordinate does every minute of every day?” Fragale asks. “Of course you don’t. You’re not standing over their shoulder.... And when you think about how you learn about people, you realize that a good part of what you learned about them has started with them: I talked to them in a meeting. I listened to a presentation they made. I read an email they wrote.... So, we are the way in which people learn about us.”
Thinking of it from a marketing standpoint, you are the product. Your words are the advertising.
“If you have a consumer company, people are going to fight among to get items at eye level on the shelf space at Walmart,” she says. “That’s at eye level, right? Because the thing I can see, I’m much more likely to buy.... It’s no different when you’re the product.”
Three Ways to Tell Your Story & Gain Status
Though her book offers many approaches to building status, she gives three powerful examples that align with the power of telling your story.
1. Brag & Thank
One of the most effective things to help build status is to build other people’s.
When a podcast host told Fragale she’d just gotten her first standing ovation as a public speaker but worried that talking about it would be boastful, Fragale suggested she create a social media post focused on the concept of brag and thank, which allows you to tout your accomplishment while shining a spotlight on others. She advised her to say, “The coolest thing happened: I got a standing ovation,” then acknowledge anyone who helped. Whether a speaking coach offered good advice or family listened to the speech 10 times, Fragale says the research shows that this approach illustrates someone’s capability and humility, which is another way of proving that shining the spotlight on someone else doesn’t have to dim your own.
Spark Curiosity
Take advantage of what most would consider throwaway questions like, “What’s up?” or “How are you?”
If we say, “I’m busy” or “I’m good,” those are wasted opportunities to get someone curious about you.
When she asked a stranger at an event how his day was going, he replied that he’d had the “best day.” “I said what everyone would say in response to that: ‘What happened?' So, whether or not I intended to actually care about his day, when he responded that way, all of a sudden, I was hooked.” He told her he got a new client whose mission was to change the world, and now he got to support a mission he believed in. “I left feeling pretty impressed and thought he was super modest and warm,” she says. “It was very likable badass.”
Be an ‘Other’ Promoter
Move people from thinking you’re great to talking about how great you are.
“Other people are always going to be more efficient and more effective at building your brand than you are,” Fragale says. They’re not limited by what they can say, so they can effusively sing your praises. “You’re the story. They’re the microphone,” she says.
But people can’t sing your praises if they don’t know you exist. People need help to see your value. When Fragale couldn’t take a speaking gig, she passed it to someone who had asked to be considered. Referring others adds value, builds goodwill and can turn them into your biggest promoters.
At the end of the day, being a likeable badass is all about other people thinking you’re capable, caring and trustworthy. All of which “are going to bring people to want to be in a relationship with you, whether it’s personal or professional,” Fragale says. “So these things matter.”
Image courtesy of ©Eileen Molony
This article was first published in the November/December 2025 issue of SUCCESS® magazine. Get your copy here.
