Respect In The Work Place

The Benefits of a Respectful Working Environment 

One cornerstone of Values Based Leadership is respect. Everyone in the organization, but particularly those in leadership positions, should foster respect for everyone (both within and external to the organization).

Unfortunately, this is not always the case. A University of Michigan study of 1100 workers reported that 71% experienced incidents of incivility or disrespect in the workplace. In another report, over half of 14,000 workers around the world said they had felt disrespected in the workplace during the prior week. And a British Workplace Behavior Survey estimated that nearly 2 million workers in Britain had experienced some form of violence at work over a two-year period.

Showing respect for everyone you come into contact with, including indirect contact such as phone calls and email, is essential for developing productive relationships and managing conflict in the workplace. There should be no tolerance for especially damaging and degrading forms of disrespect in the work environment such as bullying, harassment, backstabbing, sabotage, harmful comments or denigrating gossip.

Former Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat once said, "There can be hope only for a society which acts as one big family, and not as many separate ones." 

The same can be said for all organizations, whether large or small. One of the best ways to break down the silos found in an organization is by establishing firm ground rules that promote respect amongst all co-workers, and between the organization's employees and its customers, suppliers, vendors, partners, regulators, and all other external parties.

In a respectful work environment the following traits can be found: 

·         Personal differences are put aside to focus on solving problems and creating solutions.

·         Everyone treats all others with respect at all times.

·         Open and honest constructive communication takes place.

·         Differences in opinions and ideas are tolerated and respected.

·         There is no talking behind another person's back.

·         When problems between individuals arise they are handled forthrightly, constructively and openly.

·         It is assumed that everyone is doing the best they can with the resources at hand and that everyone's heart is in the right place for the good of the organization and its workers.

The main benefit of a respectful working environment is that less time and energy is spent handling conflicts (particularly personality conflicts and people issues), resulting in more time available for productive work and getting the right things done. 

A respectful working environment is also less stressful, which results in higher employee motivation, fewer sick days and absenteeism, and overall higher levels of productivity. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

The Importance Of Values In Business

How an Organized is Led and Governed is Critical to its Success 

A report a few years ago titled Reputation Assurance: The Value of A Good Name, from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, stated, "A single-minded focus that seeks only to satisfy shareholders may ultimately lead to crises and erosion of shareholder value."

When business owners and leaders actively demonstrate strong values, they are better able to:

• create meaningful relationships with diverse stakeholders to drive high performance as they build and develop internal talent, and
• inspire and energize their employees and peers, by demonstrating what is expected of the team, and then simultaneously building and developing internal talent.

 Dov Seidman, author of HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (and in Life) believes there is a link between enlightened corporate behavior and performance. He argues that the most successful businesses of the future will also be the most moral ones, not as a result of formal Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives and programs, but from what he labels sustainable values. 

Unlike situational values, sustainable values are ones with sustaining human relationships built into their day-to-day practices and behaviors. In Seidman's view, how an organization is led, governed and operates is equally as important to its future success as the products and services it produces.

In fact, values are such an important item on the leadership agenda that astute leaders are now actively seeking new systems and methodologies for cascading critical values throughout their organizations. This is one area where smaller and medium sized businesses will have an advantage over monolithic, huge enterprises as it is much easier to cultivate consistent values-based behaviors across a workforce of 200 than 20,000.

Values are also very important to employees. In fact, the 2012 PWC Annual Global CEO survey reports that 59% of workers say they will seek employers whose corporate responsibility behavior matches their own values. This was higher than the 52% who said they are attracted to employers offering opportunities for career progression.

Values are important to employees. Values are important to consumers. Values are important to society.

It is little wonder that incisive and wise business owners and leaders are now deliberately and purposely using shared values as one of the best levers for optimal people performance within their organizations. As a result, they are creating great businesses that deliver significantly more than just money. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

Values Set The Context For Behavior

Values Based Leadership Helps Prevent Corporate Disasters 

Values are the catalyst for behavior. Basing collective and individual action on value goals, rather than stated performance objectives, has three important benefits for the organization:

                 1)          It helps to avoid wrong actions that lead to devastating consequences,

                2)          It helps everyone address dilemmas where there is no obvious, clear black and white correct path to take, and

                3)          It helps employees respond to the sentiments of others when strongly held opposing views come into play.

A few years ago, the high-powered leadership team at Enron was known as "the smartest guys in the room." But their lack of values-based performance led to the collapse and destruction of Enron, and carried the corpse of accounting firm Arthur Anderson with them. It also led to prison sentences for several Enron executives. 

Today, many people are questioning what the values were at Volkswagen which led some people in that organization purposefully install illegal software in their vehicles deliberately aimed at cheating laboratory emissions tests. This deliberate corporate malfeasance is going to cost Volkswagen over $15B just in the United States, plus several billions in other countries. 

Values set the context for behavior. By understanding the values your people bring to the table, and then aligning these with the vital values of the organization, you create teams of people more able to collaborate and work together to produce the results desired.

Great leaders know to monitor and measure the processes and behaviors producing results. They also know that when they modify behaviors that have slipped beyond the edges of the organization's agreed and stated values, their people performance and results return to the desired path and destination.

Values-based leadership is about sometimes taking the hardest path. It is about seeing the company's purpose as more than just a profit-producing machine. It also means putting people and values before profits and short-term "shady" tactics designed to meet quarterly or yearly numbers. As the great investor Warren Buffet said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it." 

Without a values-based leadership approach, your organization's clock is permanently set at five minutes before disaster.  

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

Leadership Based On Values

Shared Values Set the Context for Individual and Collective Behavior 

For those of you who get the opportunity to lead an entire organization, additional challenges will surface. Not the least of these is ensuring a corporate culture aligned with the collective values of its employees.

Recall the earlier quote from Henry Ford: "A business that only makes money is a poor business."

Without a doubt, this quote is more true in today's world of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), multiple constituencies, more knowledgeable customers, and a highly mobile workforce than it was during the "glorious" Industrial Age of the 1900s.

Likewise, the management philosophies and tools of the 20th century are no longer as useful or effective for leading a 21st century workforce. In fact, many leadership observers believe the pendulum has currently swung too far in the direction of the management ethos of "what gets measured gets done" and has resulted in too much emphasis on setting specifically measurable criteria for every aspect of business.

While goal setting and measurement tracking are still valid practices, the core leadership philosophy for business owners and managers today is best built on the values of transparency, excellence and caring for one another. How these core values are expressed through action and behavior differentiate one organization from another.

The Supreme Court in the United States has pronounced that "companies are people" with the same First Amendment rights and protections as individuals. While not every jurisdiction will go this far in granting organizations human qualities, the best business owners and leaders do see their organizations as living and evolving entities driven by shared values.

Each person on your team has their own inherent set of values. It is an unwise business owner or leader who expects his or her employees to park their individual values at the door upon arrival at work each day.

The astute business owner or leader, on the other hand, coalesces his or her staff around a set of shared values that set and define the context for individual and collaborative behavior.

Motorola Solutions is one such entity with a clearly defined set of shared various:

We are innovative

We are passionate

We are driven

We are accountable

We are partners

These values not only drive the decision-making process and collaborative efforts within this global, multi-cultural organization, they are also used as important criteria in the company's recruitment and talent development processes. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

Creating Authentic Interpersonal Relationships

Authentic Values and Qualities Create True Friendships 

It is natural to want others to like us; to find us enchanting, likable, friendly, attractive, engaging, personable, worthwhile, approachable, and dozens of other positive descriptors. 

Except for those who dwell within the Self Actualization segment in the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, everyone wants people to like them, even those who say they don't care what people think about them.

In fact, it is natural to care about what others think about you. It is also natural to have a desire to be respected, appreciated, loved, wanted, and viewed positively. Social scientists say that interactions with others are a vital component of our sense of self esteem, overall happiness, and even feelings of well being. 

Likewise, when we experience rejection, hear that someone has been bad mouthing us, or find out that someone does not like us our levels of self esteem, happiness and well being are negatively affected. It is not unusual for personal rejection to cause momentary bouts of deep pain, emotional outbursts and even intense sadness.

Being accepted by others is one of the key rungs on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid. So to say that this is an important facet of our human journey is a bit of an understatement. 

Unfortunately, most of us put up false fronts and use a myriad of disguises in vain attempts to attract others to us, or for us to get invited into desired circles and groups. These attempts at trying to make others like us, even when it means sacrificing part of our persona or authenticity, is nothing more than a game of masks and false identities. It is also a futile endeavor, especially over the long haul of one's life journey.

It is probably due to the falsity of the approaches used by everyone playing this game that most non-family friendships and relationships throughout one's life are temporary and impermanent. Very few relationships and friendships can withstand the scrutiny of reality when the masks and false fronts are removed, and the true and authentic selves emerge over time. It is little wonder that the label "false friend" is readily applied when friendships and relationships end in acrimonious, bitter and spiteful fashion.

The secret to creating authentic relationships is to know, understand, respect, and love yourself. 

Once you are authentic with yourself, you can be authentic with others. Authentic people do not judge themselves or others, but rather seek authenticity in others and base their relationships on the type and level of authenticity found.

Being attractive to the kinds of people you want, desire, or need in your life means exuding your authenticity in every action taken (or not taken) and every word spoken (or not spoken).  

When others witness and experience your own authentic values and qualities, the ones you will attract into your life are more likely to be genuinely appreciative of your values and qualities. They are also more likely to be emotionally, mentally and spiritually in-tune with your emotional, mental and spiritual selves. 

This article is excerpted from our book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats. 

Respecting Others

Respect is a Core Value of a Project You Life Journey 

Fred Rogers, who had a famous television show in America called Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, had an interesting, almost altruistic, attitude about respect, one that very few people today would practice or preach:

As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has ─ or ever will have ─ something inside that is unique all the time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.

 In a similar vein, Lee Atwater, a political consultant and presidential advisor, proclaimed, "There is nothing more important in life than human beings, nothing sweeter than the human touch."

If Atwater's thoughts are anywhere near close to truth, then we all need to show greater respect to each of our fellow human beings. And there's probably no better time to begin than the present.

The ability to forgive is a core component of respect, for the art of forgiveness is an explicit display of respecting another person's universal strengths and human weaknesses.

Some very good advice comes courtesy of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German writer from the early 19th century: "Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you will help them become what they are capable of becoming."

Perhaps that is what the true essence of respect is all about ── treating people as if they were what they ought to be (instead of how you might be currently perceiving them).

Here's some more advice on respect, which is excerpted from a booklet called Lessons From Sports by college football coach Todd Dodge:

Respect your opponent.

Never get full of yourself, or you may get ambushed.

Don't ever think you have arrived. Don't be intimidated, but do give respect to your opponent.

You have to pay your dues and prove yourself before being promoted.

Be the perfect gentleman off the field and the ultimate competitor on the field.

Be grateful for what you have and for the support of those around you.

The importance of respect, and showing respect to others, cannot be overstated as a key ingredient of a Project You Life Journey. 

In our interconnected universe, having disrespect for others is akin to having disrespect for all, including ourselves.

This article is excerpted from the top-selling personal and professional development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in paperback ($7.90) and Kindle ($6.88) formats. 

Living A Principle Centered Life

Be Unflinching in Your Commitment to Your Principles 

Living A Determined Life means being totally committed to your principles and values. 

However, one of the most important things about personal principles is to understand that you cannot impose your values on others. 

For instance, suppose you place a high value on punctuality, but your partner does not. Any efforts you make to impose your value of punctuality on your partner will undoubtedly lead to numerous spats followed by many moments of anguish and despair.

When you make judgments of others based on your principles, friction ensues.

One aspect of emotional maturity is the ability to leverage your values with courage in your decisions and actions, combined with the ability to do so in consideration of the feelings and convictions of others. 

Another aspect of emotional maturity is the ability to understand how the values of others form a foundation for their own decisions and actions, even when these are not acceptable to you or are in direct opposition to your own views and convictions.

When you are emotionally mature you can have a great deal of ego strength, while maintaining respect and empathy for others.

Your principles require 100% commitment and dedication. They are not something to be pulled out of your wallet or purse and used to pay for your experiences in life like some kind of values credit card.

Be unflinching in your commitment to your principles. As Denis Waitley has written, "Moderation in temper is always a virtue. Moderation in principle is always a vice."

And lastly, by all means stick to your principles through hardships, turmoil, disappointments, heartaches, and in those moments when it seems like life would be easier if you just made a little compromise here or there. When it comes to your principles, there is no such thing as a "little" compromise.

In the words of Thomas Jefferson, "In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."

 This article is partially excerpted from the top-selling personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life. Get your copy today at Amazon in either Kindle or paperback format.