Building a Culture of Respect
According to the Harvard Business Review employees who feel respected are more grateful for—and loyal to—their organizations. This idea is common sense, but a lot of work environments don’t seem to understand it well enough to nurture and grow a culture of respect within their teams.
How important is respect? Recently I sat down for a Leader to Leader (L2L) session with our landscape staff. L2L is when we come into the breakroom for 30-50 minutes to talk about personal growth, leadership, teamwork and how it applies to our work and life. It is the highlight of my month.
I asked the staff if respect was important in the field. With no hesitation, it was unanimous that respect was a big part of having a great team and extremely important to them personally. In the discussion everyone agreed that at the beginning everyone is owed a level of respect, but over time, respect must be earned.
Study after study has shown that people simply perform better in a culture of respect. In 1998 psychologist Barbara Fredrickson developed the Broaden-and-Build Theory, which takes the idea that positive emotions, such as those generated by both owed and earned respect, can broaden our ability and willingness to engage with our job and one another. Once we begin broadening our experiences, we can build useful skills to improve our mindset, our productivity, and our work environment.
Next, I asked the L2L staff in that meeting to give me some ideas on how a person can gain or earn that respect with the team. Here are their top seven answers:
- Taking Initiative: Helping others without being asked and doing good deeds.
- Leading-by-example: Don’t be lazy. Don’t wait for someone to tell you to get out of the truck and start working.
- Displaying a Good Work Ethic: Showing strong character –show up to work on time, do the work when no one is watching. Take pride in your work. Do it right the first time.
- Showing Respect: Treat others with due respect. Don’t talk down to others and don’t lead with a negative attitude.
- Understanding and Fairness: Make it about the job, not the people. Don’t always criticize others. Give reasons why/how the work can be done better.
- Acknowledging Achievements: Admire the achievements of others – be happy for others who do good or win a award.
- Trustworthiness: Don’t lie.
They said it well.
Go cultivate respect.
Jeff
