What People Want From Their Boss
How you can improve employee commitment and engagement by demonstrating respect?
A recent Forbes article revealed that 65% percent of people would rather have a different boss than a raise!
Take that in for a moment; people would trade money for a better boss. Furthermore, a recent study by Harvard Business Review of 20,000 employees around the world found that the most important things managers want from their managers is respect.
So as a leader how do you demonstrate and provide respect to your people?
Here are a number of things you can do:
- Goals – be clear on what you want them to do and achieve. What are their goals and how do they contribute to a greater purpose? Make sure you are clear on how this fits into what you are looking to achieve.
- Learning – help your staff understand what they need to learn, and why, so they can perform to the best of their ability. You also need to ensure that they have the necessary access to the skills development and support in developing the necessary capabilities and capacity.
- Communication – help them to communicate with you. In doing this make sure your people are not only able to communicate with you, but that you create an environment where they can take the initiative and responsibility for communicating and engaging with you.
- Empathy – help people to understand where you are coming from, and actively listen to understand where they are coming from. In doing so help them to understand what your priorities and why they are important. Look to help them align them with the goals of your business.
- Relationships – respect is based on knowing and understanding each other. Help people to understand how they ‘fit’ into the team and contribute. Help them to answer for themselves the question “How can I help?” This allows you and them to develop the necessary insights, advice, and understanding on how you can both work together most effectively.
- Feedback – you need to provide timely and regular feedback to others as to how they are performing and how they can improve.
- Reflection – take time out to reflect and think about how you are working with others, and how they may perceive you as a result.
You may be the boss, but everything with your people runs along a two-way street. Being a boss does not give you respect, you have to earn it. These tips will help you to develop the respect that you need to have to operate with the active support and endorsement of your people.
So what are the benefits of this? Well, no other leader behavior had a bigger effect on employees. Being treated with respect is more important to employees than recognition and appreciation, communicating an inspiring vision, providing useful feedback — even opportunities for learning, growth, and development.
Those that get respect from their leaders reported 56% better health and well-being, 1.72 times more trust and safety, 89% greater enjoyment and satisfaction with their jobs, 92% greater focus and prioritization, and 1.26 times more meaning and significance. Those that feel respected by their leaders were also 1.1 times more likely
So, in improving how your people perceive they are treated with respect, how are you going to do this and what are you going to do first? Now is the perfect time to start!
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