Respectful Leadership Means Putting Down The Smartphone
OK, show of hands…how many of you have been in meetings where the boss (or multiple bosses) have been checking their smart phones while you or your colleagues were in the middle of presenting? You can all put your hands down now (uh, ma’am, you can put both hands down now). Yes, this has happened to many of us. And how does it make us feel? Most of us would say...
Hierarchy Plays A Role in Disrespect
The manager and subordinate I’d been working with as a mediator were both angry with each other. The subordinate felt disrespected by the manager and vice versa. But, while the manager shrugged it off as the employee being too sensitive (and disrespectful), the employee was stuck in a cycle of feeling disrespected and powerless, growing more and more enraged each time the manager failed...
When Does Public Disrespect Deserve A Response?
I’m disturbed by some publicly disrespectful behavior we observed in a department store recently. While checking out, we noticed a little girl – perhaps 2 years old – running around behind the checkout lines while her mother, her aunt and grandmother, paid the cashier. The child ran right behind a store Associate – a girl maybe 18 years old – who was assisting at...
Don’t Disrespect Me, You Multitasker
My good friend, who manages gift shops, was livid: “The next customer who comes in and tries to buy something while they’re talking on their cell phone, isn’t going to get served.” She says people do this to her all of the time and it drives her off the deep end, adding “It’s incredibly disrespectful to me and my staff.” Sure it is. The problem is a person who talks on their phone while...
Just Because I Can (tell too many stories)
It was 2006 and I was sitting in the back of a large conference room at a military installation on the West Coast when I was 99% certain that I would have smack my head against the wall just to keep awake. It seems our Program Manager, an active duty Navy Captain, had decided to tell yet another story during our weekly “all hands” meeting. The problem? While he may have been a good...
Gregg Ward | Appearance on Fox News
Those who follow politics know that nothing generates news and commentary like a sex scandal. And when a big state Governor gets caught up in a sex scandal, well it can become a media feeding frenzy. And so it proved in early March of 2008, when the New York Times reported that Governor Eliot Spitzer – a former state Attorney General who prided himself on his law and order reputation – had...
Disrespect or Bullying?
What’s the difference between disrespect and bullying? According to a recent post by the author and workplace bullying expert Valerie Cade, the difference appears to be about self-awareness and intention. Most of us who aren’t bullies have been unintentionally disrespectful toward a co-worker at one time or another (I know I have and I’m not proud of it). But most times we’ve been unaware...
The Introverted Manager’s Dilemma
Last year I was coaching a mid-level manager named “Ted” who admitted he was having trouble “making small talk” with his team. Some of them even said he was “unapproachable” in an anonymous employee survey. So, when I asked him about it Ted came clean, “I come in Monday mornings and head directly for my office. I’m not comfortable asking people how their weekends went, or talking about the big...
Practicing “Regular Respect” Is Easy Until It Isn’t
If you’re like most people, you’ll hold a door open for a stranger when entering or leaving a public space like an office building, coffee shop or retailer. And, if you’re like most people, you’ll say “excuse me” when you bump into someone in public. And, you’ll say “bless you” when someone sneezes. These are all typical examples of what I call “Regular Respect.” Others call it “common...