#18 - How to Earn Respect as a Leader

Respect isn't given because of a title—it's earned through your actions every day.

In this episode, I share the habits, behaviours, and mindset that help leaders build genuine respect from their team without relying on authority or fear.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

One of the major things that I think people disregard at the very beginning of coming into a leadership role is how to earn respect. And you'll see some good leaders and most good leaders actually have a lot of respect from their team. And people will say, oh yeah, he's got the respect. That's why, that's why people are doing the job. But that's built. It's not given. So respect is earned. And this should be a focus before you go into a leadership role and pre-plan it. If you're not in the leadership role yet, think about the things that you would do straight away that's needed. And maybe learn from your current boss or the current leaders that you've worked for, previous leaders, so that the things that they've done is actually teaching you what not to do. So for me personally, I've worked for multiple people that were always doing things that I knew wasn't right. And you are in a tough position at times because you can't change that, and you're not in a position to argue it either. All you're doing is you have to wait. And you've got to wait until the time is right for you to step up and make the change. But really important to actually take in what didn't work and introduce what will work when you take over. And this is how you earn respect. For me, for example, I would just want to give this example because you can probably be related to it and I can relate to this topic a bit as well. My current role that I'm in now, I was the second in charge for that for over 18 months. And the whole time I knew this wasn't right. You know, the culture, people were leaving, the culture was terrible, only I put employees at so much. And it got to a point where the my boss at the time was moved on. I had an opportunity to make a change pretty quick. So I already pre-planned what I would do. So I made up a document and presented it to the team and said, this is basically how it's going to be going forward. These are the new standards, correct work attire. Now, shirt's tucked in for me. You work in a golf course, private golf club, shreds tucked in, belts, correct shoes. And I made a promise to them that we will look after everything in terms of your uniform. Or all I ask is that you follow the standard of wearing it correctly and you hold yourself in a high professional standard every day. All the wiped dissenters, this is what we're going to be doing. Ticked off this whole thing. And then I said to them, if anyone's not on board, now's the time to act on that and go find another job. Because this is the way it's going forward. And if anything, the motivation went up even higher. So straight away I had the respect instantly from the team. And then from that, what the next phase of your earning respect is introducing systems and structure to both get results efficiently, look after the team, as in culture, and develop your team. So your job now is looking after the team and making your team great. You are obviously put in the position as a leader for a reason because you've obviously been hired off a skill set that you've already shown. But no one's ever seen your leadership skills to the full extent yet. So now's an opportunity to showcase that to your team. And the more that you do extra things and one percenters and gauging what the team needs, and the more that you look after your team and put the team first, the more respect you will get naturally. One thing that I would say do not do is come in the next day thinking that with your chest out, thinking that you run the show now. Technically, yes, you do, but you don't want to portray it like that. You're a part of the team just as much as everybody else is. If you if you create that separation from the very beginning, you're gonna have a hard time rating that back in because people are just gonna think, oh, here they go, they've finally got the job and they're gonna change. Don't change, become yourself even more and lean into what you do well as a leader naturally first. So some people, as I said in the in the leadership sprint intro video, some people have natural leadership tendencies about them, and other people find it very difficult. So it's important to work out what you do well naturally, and then top it up by either learning new skills or communicating that to your team. Hey, I'm not very good at this. Can I get some assistance with it, please? Build the team around you that wants to help each other. And there's no there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make you a weak leader, it actually makes you a strong leader because you're willing to accept that you're not very good at something, and that's completely fine as well, but as long as you want to get better at it. So lean into the things that you do well naturally. So for me personally, I think I do well at culture awareness. I can tell when something's affecting the culture, I can tell when somebody is affecting the culture, and I can tell when the guys need a bit of a lift, you know, like whether it's a staff barbecue or a staff event, something like that. I'll get a bit of a good guide on that. And for me, if I maintain that, I know I'm doing a good job. And I don't really get on the tools much anymore because there's better people at that job than me, and that's not my job anymore. Not in an arrogant way, but I've got planning to do, and I've got to make sure that the team's well balanced, the skills matrix up to date, and make sure that I'm actually available for the team. So you don't want to become a leader that sits in the office and becomes unavailable, or we'll never see them anymore. You've got to be available, so you've got to prioritize, just like you would prioritize a task for any other thing throughout the day, you've got to prioritize talk to your team as well. So earning the respect of your team is really important. And it's about coming in with a plan, don't wing it. And being transparent with your team. Your team want to know what's going on. They need to know what the goal is, where the where your vision is for the next 12 months, what projects have you got coming up, and where's your head at? So it's important to understand that the leader of the room controls the weather of that lunchroom. So you control everything, the mood. If you if you come in in a shitty mood, you're gonna set the tone for everybody else. If you come in in a good mood, you're gonna set the tone for everybody else. So just as much as negativity is contagious, so is positivity. So another thing that I've done as well is introduce six leadership pillars for the team, which they must follow. So professionalism at the door, no excuses, no big to mentality, these kinds of things, because you don't want people bringing stuff to work. And the quicker you introduce a standard like that with pillars, with a pillar system, the easier it is for you to instill disciplinary action if you need to, because you can pull that person and go, hey, you agreed to these pillars, you're not actually following them. So start following them, or you're gonna have to move on. And it's really important to get that hit the ground running from the very start. So I I would suggest that you back yourself from the very start, go in with a plan and make sure your main focus is at the start is to earn the respect of the team.