Leadership & Management

Step 2: Respect

A leader needs to embed respect into the workplace and ensure that respect is shown to those at the highest and lowest levels.

• Do I collaborate with employees on relevant decisions?
• Do I respect employees as individuals with personal obligations and challenges?
• Do I support professional development and show appreciation?
• Tips on Respect
• Create your own action plan

Do I collaborate with employees on relevant decisions?

Action Plan

• In larger organizations, ask managers to prepare annual budgets and forecasts for their departments. Invite one-on-ones in which you review these forecasts with the manager, and invite all to a single session in which you explain priorities. Roll out company-wide targets, show how their plan contributes, and obtain buy in.
• Develop a habit of going to individual managers or the management group to discuss a decision that affects a department or the entire company. Encourage individual managers to establish a similar process with employees in their unit, namely collaborating on departmental-level decisions.
• Where possible and reasonable engage all levels of employees to brainstorm ideas or strategic decisions with you. A decision about the facilities can include the maintenance and cleaning staff. A decision about communications can include the receptionist and some employees who speak directly with clients. If it is relevant to the individual's job try to give them an opportunity to collaborate.
• Understand the experiences and skill sets of your employees that are not related to their job. For example, an employee who is finishing a degree in marketing but working as a clerk could be consulted for ideas on marketing projects.

Do I respect employees as individuals with personal obligations and challenges?

Action Plan

• Make work-life balance for employees one of the company's values.
• Make sure that managers understand the importance of work-life balance and its connection to productivity. Tie recognition and rewards programs for managers to employee wellness and satisfaction.
• Make one of your key messages the fact that you appreciate an employee's loyalty, but maintaining a reasonable work-life balance is important as well.
• Where possible and practical, allow for flexibility so that employees are able to fulfill personal obligations while meeting workplace goals.

Do I support professional development and show appreciation?

• Make professional development one of the company's values and encourage pride in having a highly trained, professional workforce.
• Make discussion of training and professional development a regular feature of your meetings with employees.
• At meetings, recognize employees who have completed courses and ask them to describe how it is helping them be more productive, professional and skilled.

Tips on Respect

• Make it a practice to solicit employee input from all, rather than a select few.
• Take impromptu walks around the workplace, engage in one-on-ones or gather a few employees around a work station and discuss a single issue.
• Get back to employees and let them know how their idea helped. Your actions demonstrate that you respect employees.

Create your own action plan

Leadership Matters-Ensure Respect Throughout the Workplace [PDF]