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 fairly common mistake that most new managers or supervisors make, as they often have a tendency to believe that just being in the position is enough for them to deserve the attention and respect of their subordinates.
Although you should never put your ultimate position as a decision-maker in jeopardy, you should make a point of engaging with your employees as often as possible. This can generally be a fairly subtle undertaking as you don’t want to appear overly dominant or submissive, as the route to respect is directly between these characteristics.
Always show that you are competent, understand your role and have a good grasp of the business fundamentals. There isn’t anything worse than a ‘ship drifting aimlessly at sea’, because before you can earn the respect of your employees, you have to be able to dispel their fears and show them that you’re fully in control of the business and its future.
You must be able to ‘walk the walk’ as well as ‘talk the talk’ and you should establish yourself as the role model within the organization. Stand by your convictions and believe in what you say.
Always try to avoid bluffing 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 you 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.
Adam Toren, Co-Founder of Young Entrepreneur, specializes in improving the profitability of under-performing businesses with a unique and ‘bottom line’ program. Adam, along with his brother, have started, bought and sold several companies over the past years. They currently own and operate a successful publishing company and several online companies.
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