Ways to Know If Employees Respect Your Leadership
Being respected as a leader in any organization is important. You cannot lead a company when you know that the people around you do not respect you or see you as a leader. It does not mean that you have to please everyone. Being liked is different from being respected. It does not matter if they do not like you that much, but at least they respect you enough to work with you. These are some ways to tell that your employees respect your leadership.
You can communicate with them
Communication is crucial in any organization. You cannot proceed if you have a hard time communicating with everyone. You will know that you are respected if people stay professional when talking to you. They are also open about how they feel to you. When they decide to not give any idea at all, it means that they are either too afraid to talk or they could not be bothered to care about your success as a leader. Either way, it is a sign that you are not respected.
They follow what you say
You need people to be obedient to what you say. It does not mean that they are being subservient, but it shows that they are willing to listen. You still need to give them the chance to think independently and ask questions. However, in the end, they will still follow the instructions and submit the requirements on time. If one or two people do not, it means that you need to talk to them since they could have issues at work. If everyone else does it, you could be the problem.
Observe their body language
When you talk to the employees, you need to find out how they react. Do they look at you in the eyes? Do they feel comfortable when sitting next to you? Do they feel excited when asked to speak with them privately? If there are employees who even reach a point of snubbing you when they see you in the hall or point their fingers at you during a meeting in a rude way, it shows that they do not see you as a leader who deserves respect.
They don’t keep you out of the loop
Most organizations these days use messaging apps to make it easy to communicate with one another. You can create one for your team to help you speak with each other for work-related stuff. Some of them might also have another group for topics not related to work. If they love and respect you as a boss, they would not mind including you in this group. If you find out that they have a group where they intentionally excluded you, it means that they don’t like you.
When you feel that the people you work with do not respect you, it should be alarming. You cannot let things continue this way. You have to do something about it. You do not need to be lenient, but you can be more approachable.
Photo Attribution:
1st and featured image from https://content.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/learning/blog/2017/august/Work.Meeting.jpg
2nd image from https://businesscollective.com/4-strategies-for-honing-your-business-leadership-skills/index.html
