Building Your Career? Don’t Forget Respect

We generally don’t think about it, but a big part of your success today is because people respect you. When you say something, they listen. When you ask for help, how well they respond is largely based on what they think of you. No matter how smart or well spoken you may be, if people don’t respect you, they will not be led by you. People will go the extra mile for someone they respect. They will cut corners and sabotage those they do not.

It is not just in the professional world that respect is critical. We did some very innovative market research on relationships when I was working as Viagra brand manager. Going through relationship issues of my own, I paid a lot of attention to the things that separated the successful couples from those who were struggling. Over and over again, what I saw was that if there were just one word to describe what made the foundation of a great long-term romantic relationship, it would be respect.
But for some reason, we rarely think about respect as one of the elements that we can work on to improve our career prospects and job performance. My question to you is, even though you are well respected now, what would be the impact on your job and career if people respected you even more?

And the next question, what can you do to take people’s respect for you to the next level? Earning respect is a lot like building up your savings account. It is rarely one thing that you say or do that significantly increases how much your colleagues respect you. It is the million small things, built up over time.

Consistently behaving in an ethical manner, doing what you say you will, working hard, treating those above and below you on the corporate ladder with kindness and respect. People see you doing these things consistently and over time their respect for you grows.

Consistently behaving in an ethical manner, doing what you say you will, working hard, treating those above and below you on the corporate ladder with kindness and respect. People see you doing these things consistently and over time their respect for you grows.

In the work environment, your ability to command respect is a primary driver of how well others respond to you and thereby how effective you are in your role. Think about what you can do to increase how much those around you respect you and make sure that you are not doing anything that could be hurting the respect that others have for you now.

Respect in never a category that shows up as part of your mid-year evaluation but don’t kid yourself, it is critical to your personal and professional success.