Dignity and respect earns trust and loyalty

If you are in a position of authority over others, you have an awesome responsibility. You also have been given a privilege to lead. If you are “lucky” enough to rise in your organization to a position of power, I would encourage you to keep your feet firmly on the ground and to be a humble leader. If you are a leader, people will follow you. Some will follow out of fear. Some will follow out of mere morbid curiosity of where you will lead them (see lemmings). No one will follow you out of desire unless you earn their trust and loyalty.

Trust and loyalty comes from treating people with dignity and respect. Simply because you have the right to give orders and boss people around doesn’t mean you have to. Saying please and thank you and showing a genuine interest in your employees will do more to motivate them than the threats and intimidation that so many bosses use.

Some bosses get consumed by their power. It feels good to them. Order people to jump… and they jump. Not because they WANT to jump. Rather, they fear the consequences if they don’t jump. The boss feels accomplished because the employees are jumping, just as the boss ordered them to do. The boss thinks the employees are motivated – and they are. However, they are not motivated by desire to do the company’s work. They are motivated by fear to keep their jobs.

Effective bosses do not have to be popular. However, the most effective bosses I have seen are those whose employees genuinely enjoy working for the boss and doing the company’s work because the boss treats the employees with dignity and respect. One of the problems with bad bosses is… they don’t see it. It’s like they have bad breath and can’t smell it. And no one’s going to tell the boss because the fear factor is so high it’s not worth the risk. So employees hang on and hope the boss leaves or the employees leave. Surveys of top performing employees have repeatedly shown that they don’t quit the company… they quit the bad boss. If you become a boss, treat your employees with dignity and respect and you will earn trust and loyalty.

Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
RBG3100@aol.com