What if you try to treat people the way they want to be treated instead of how you want to be treated? I think the "golden rule" has been often misinterpreted

What if you try to treat people the way they want to be treated instead of how you want to be treated? I think the "golden rule" has been often misinterpreted as " treat people how you want to be treated" which leads to this misunderstanding that you called out. If we change it to being empathetic towards them and treating them how they want to be treated, the NPCs seem to become fully fledged characters.