There’s a common misconception among people that everyone should like them and want to be around them. This may be because we like to be around people who are like us. When we discover, however, that others – our colleagues, for example – don’t want to be around us, never mind work with us, then the tendency is to blame them, little realizing that it is we who need to give them a reason to want to work with us in the first place.

Here are five such reasons to get you started:

1. Value the opinions of others. It’s easy to think you know the answers already if you’re a Type A, born leader, go-getter, or action person. One or more of these characteristics may be true of you, and the more of them that are, the harder this will be for you to do. It also means that it will be easy for you to ride roughshod over others. But when you do that, you’ll make people decline opportunities to work with you, and to cry off if attempts are made to force them to.

2. Recognize their expertise. If you’re the expert, then you value the respect of others. The same thing is true of everyone else. Even if you’re the humblest on earth, and the best team player the world has ever seen, you and they still want the others to recognize the expertise that both of you have.

3. Say only good things about others. If you only say good things about others, then you’ll earn the respect of your colleagues. You’ll be amazed at how much more people will want to work with you if they know that you have such a high opinion of them that you’re willing to brag about them to others.

4. Be sure that you have the enthusiastic consent of those who will be most affected by your decisions. Enthusiastic consent doesn’t mean, “Well. Okay.” Instead, it means, “Yes! Absolutely! Can’t wait!” That doesn’t mean that you always have to agree. Some of your best working relationships can be with those who you can have the heated debate with, strongly disagree with – and they can do the same with you. However, once a course of action has been decided on, you can then both rally behind it. You show enthusiasm to others, rather than demonstrating the passive aggressive approach of “Well, I think it’s stupid, but we have to do it their way.”

5. Keep everyone informed about what you’re doing. Whatever you expect of others is just as true for you. If you want to know what everyone else is doing, then you must be sure they’re kept abreast of your activities. It’s altogether too easy to expect the one without thinking about the other. Remember that the perceptions are key. It doesn’t matter what your motives and intent are. It only matters how it looks to them. A good place to start is for everyone involved in a project to summarize what they’ll be doing between this meeting and the next one. Your team members should be confident that they have the freedom to ask questions of you without you becoming defensive or coy with your answers.

Learn to value the opinions of others, recognize their expertise, say only good things about others, obtain the enthusiastic consent of those who will be most affected by your decisions, and keep them all informed about what you’re doing.