How to Earn Respect from your Employees
September 4, 2009 by
Matthew
Filed under
Business, Entrepreneurship, Personal Development
Whether you are brand-new to your position or have been experiencing a difficult time interacting with your employees, you must realize that respect is not something that automatically comes with the position, but it must be earned. This is a mistake that many new managers or bosses make as they think that merely being in the position of supervisor is sufficient to garner the attention and respect of subordinates.
While you must always, fundamentally, protect your ultimate position as a decision-maker, you should engage your employees as much as possible. This can often be a subtle undertaking as you neither want to appear to be too dominant nor too submissive, yet the path to respect lies in the middle.
Always show that you are competent, understand your role and have a good grasp of the business fundamentals. There is nothing worse than a ship adrift at sea and before you can get the respect of your employees you must be able to counter their fears and show them that you are clearly in control of the business destiny.
You must be able to “walk the walk” as well as “talk the talk” and should establish yourself as the role model within the organization. Stand by your convictions and believe in what you say.
Never try and bluff your way through any situation. If you truly do not know, admit to it and move on to the next step, which is to try and find a solution to the issue and to educate yourself appropriately to do so. You can gain a lot of respect by engaging your employees to contribute their knowledge and possible solutions to the situation. This goes a long way to gather respect.
If you are new to your position as employer or supervisor, it is generally a good idea to allocate time to an inclusive meeting with all the staff, during which you may go through a “state of the business” discussion and outline the corporate goals, your goals and invite contributions to determine their goals. If you can establish that success is a joint initiative between all of you and that each employee has his or her significant part to play, then you can engage their support for your overall objectives.
If problems arise and decisions have to be made, understand that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this. It is often better to suggest rather than to dictate, as this helps to involve the employee and should make for a more enthusiastic approach, as opposed to a mandate. This does not mean that you should be “a pushover,” and must be prepared to make a firm decision if detraction, for one reason or another, would not be in the best interests of the business as a whole.
In short, always be approachable, reasonable, inclusive, appreciative yet firm. You will find that this approach is far more likely to gain employees’ respect and lead to a successful and mutually rewarding relationship.
Speaking from first hand experience, do you have any suggestions?
Matthew Toren
Very true and 100% agree with post only position does not matter but senior need to be understand responsibility of given role, situation of junior with care of all aspects.
Good post, which I agree with mostly… Keep up the good work
Thanks Matthew, for this in-depth post on earning respect from our employees.
Being humble is a great way to earn Respect, acknowledge employees, and make others feel like they are on equal footing in my opinion is the best way to gain respect.
Till then,
Jean
It’s really good corporate post. It’s very helpful article for management person. Thanks.
Very well written. Giving respect to employees is one of the most important aspect of relationship in order to get it back.
If you have been promoted to better position then don’t change your behavior. Maintain friendly behavior like you use to practice in the past. Most people get rude which hurts their reputation.
To earn respect not only from your employees but also from other people, you should learn to respect yourself first. Become someone who is respectable and humble and people would naturally love you and respect you.
Matthew,
You are absolutely right. Respect is very important factor in dealing with the employees. The success of the business also lies on employer - employee relationship.
In todays working environment its more crucial than ever to take an inclusive approach to your employees.
It’s essential that you get fully involved with what they do, how they do it and the problems that they encounter. You have to be able to provide or help them provide the solutions.
It’s got be ‘hands on’ even from the ‘boss’ persepctive. Long gone are the days when a boss could get away with simply issuing commands.
Andrew.
Well, this is a great post, I agree 100% with you. You can’t get up if you can’t learn how to earn the respect from the people that are “below” you.
BTW, I am reading a great book “what got you here won’t get you there” about pers development, which I strongly suggest to anybody… just search for it on Amazon.
Earn respect from your employees is the easiest way to make sure a business will succeed and prosper and it is not something you get from simple authority…
It’s funny how much attention can be placed in business on treating customers with respect yet when it comes to team mate respect, the principles can go straight out the door.
Thanks for the list. I’ll keep this in mind.
Thanks for the great post. I’ve found that actively asking employees for their contribution and thoughts on a situation to be a great way to earn respect.
If we’re honest with ourselves, our employees have been in the role longer than us and know the inner workings better. It only makes sense to ask their advice.
Very sound advice. Although I’m just starting out, I realize that blogging can be like an online business. And as I begin to develop my business more and more it’s good for me to understand fundamentals of maintaining the respect of my employees. I think that business lessons like this apply to more than the everyday corporate world. It applies to us online marketers too.
Good points Matt, position does not alone entitle someone to become respectable. Respect is something that is earned from the things you do and the way you treat others. It all begins with yourself and eventually networks to other. Personally, I respect someone who respects me, it’s just a two way process.
I think to earn respect you have to give it. If you respect them, they will respect you. Treat others how you would like to be treated. Great Rule!