Most people would quickly say that they are respectful of others. But are they being truthful or just unaware of what their actions are showing in regards to respect? Most of the time that someone is being disrespectful, it is not intentional and they are not even aware of it.
I have worked as a salaried manager for most of my career. There are good and bad points about being in a salaried position. You are guaranteed a certain level of pay each week, but your hours can vary based on the needs of the position. As a leader, you may have people paid hourly and some salaried members on your team. Most of you would not even consider calling an hourly employee when they are not at work to ask them work related questions.
Someone on salary is expected, in many cases, to be available at all times. Why is this? I would like you to think about some of the times that you have called a co-worker when they were off work to ask them about a situation at work. Was it really necessary, or just convenient? Did you really respect their time away from work? Some times you are the one that does not respect your own time away from work.
I have seen too many times, where a member of management goes on vacation and they call the office everyday and are always checking e-mails. I see this as a problem. If you are a strong leader, then you have already trained and empowered your team to handle most, if not all situations, that will arise while you are on vacation. Or is it that you are that arrogant that you have to micromanage your team because only you, can make the right decisions? My point is that this is not being respectful of your own time off and your family that you are on vacation with.
When your co-workers are out of the office, respect their time away. If you want to work on a project during the weekend, do not expect your co-workers to be available if you have questions. It may seem like just a five minute phone call to you, but it is a distraction from their time with their family or whatever activity they were doing. As I mentioned in the beginning of this blog, most of the time that someone is disrespectful, they do not even realize it. I would like you to be more aware of how you treat others. All of the things that you do affect the way that the team grows. It has an impact on the loyalty to their leader.
Be truthful to yourself. Are you respectful? What can you do to improve? Just because you are always thinking about work, do not expect your team to. Show your respect.
