Respect.

Have you ever worked with or for someone who you just didn’t think respected you or your ideas? They were someone who seemed to put you and your ideas down and do it in front of other people. Perhaps this is a better question: are YOU the person who does that to other people?

Here was a situation in which I felt that way: An idea was put forward that might be helpful to some people, but would not be for everyone. It could be a significant time saver for those who wanted to take advantage of it, but wouldn’t be as useful for others due their style of work.

Although I shouldn’t have been surprised, there was some backlash from several people. One of the comments was particularly hurtful: “People who are not top performers should not offer advice to others.” Ouch!

Put yourselves in this situation. How would you have felt had someone said something like that to you? How hard would you work for a person who says those kinds of things? Probably not very. There is no motivation at all in words like that other than the motivation to leave. It doesn’t move the organization forward. It doesn’t instill a desire to do better. It simply makes the individual even more complacent.

Yet so many times, managers and leaders treat people and say things to people just like that. They think that this somehow motivates people to try harder or do things differently, when in fact, it does exactly the opposite.

And the one word it comes down to is this: respect.

If you’ve ever worked on or with an under performing team, you know that respect is something hard to come by. First, if the leader does not respect the team or individuals on the team, then bad habits ensue including: micromanagement, demeaning people, holding some people accountable and letting others slide, not accepting of ideas, and many others that you could certainly name.

The other side of that is that the team will not respect the leader. They see the leader as, basically, a slave driver. The leader just demands what they want, doesn’t give any reason why this is important and, in essence, treats them like they were a 2 year old. Does that bring back memories?

None of the words used above lead to mutual respect or top performance. In fact, they all lead to disharmony and low performance.

So how do you fix a dysfunctional team?

The first basic step and the one step that if ignored, all else will fail, is for the leader (and it’s always the leader who must make the first move) to show respect to every single person on the team. It is important that ALL are respected. Not respecting even one person will undermine all else.

This does not mean that everyone deserves the same amount of praise or reward or compensation, but everyone does deserve the same amount of respect. How people are treated, even when being disciplined, is what everyone notices. A person can be respected even when they are being fired. Showing dignity to people, simply because they are people, bonds a team more than anything else.

Almost everyone has experienced lack of respect or dignity somewhere at some time in their life. Perhaps it was a teacher who didn’t like you and therefore treated you poorly. Perhaps it was a boss. Unfortunately for some, it was a parent.

Regardless of where and when it happened, we all know the feeling, As a leader, do you really expect your team to feel any differently if you treat them the same  negative way you were treated? When you think about in those terms, of course the answer is “no.”

But sometimes, it is really, really hard to respect someone (the political world, no matter which side you’re on, is noted for this). How do you learn to respect someone you just really don’t like? It’s hard…very hard. But it’s also very doable.

The first notion you must process is that each person you work with has needs, desires and hopes just like you do. They may be very different, but they are as important to him or her as yours are to you. There is nothing wrong with that. They are simply different.

But you’ll never know what those needs, desires and hopes are unless you get to know the person. Once you begin discovering the little things about your team members that make them tick, you’ll begin the process of understanding who they are and what they care about. Believe it or not, once you start knowing someone, it is much easier to start liking them. (This isn’t the case 100% of the time – sometimes you like them even less, but that doesn’t mean you have to disrespect them.) And once they realize that you really do know them, they’ll respect you more.

There are several ways that you can get to know them better. One simple one is to have a 10-15 minute meeting with each person on a regular basis; once a week or month or whatever is realistic for the size of team you have. At this meeting, you don’t ever bring up work. You make it all about them. Learn about their family, their vacations, their pets, etc. If they bring up work, that’s okay, but you do not bring it up. This meeting is for you to learn about them. If you’ve struggled learning to like and respect your team, this one activity alone will change all of that. But it will take time. Often, they will be even more worried about what you’re doing until they realize that everyone is going through this and you are being consistent with it.

You must be consistent. Don’t waiver. Don’t show favorites. Over time, they will learn that you do, in fact, care. And believe it or not, you’ll find that you do, in fact, care as well!

Your team will exceed your wildest expectations if you do this one thing.

If you’d like to learn more about developing strong leaders and managers, email john@leadershipcolorado.com or call 720-515-8081.