Leadership Principle number 9

What will make one leader stand out from another is how he or she treats others.   We all tend to treat our supervisors or bosses with at least a moderate amount of respect.  How do we treat those working for us such as the cleaner or security guard?

Always treat others with honesty, respect and fairness

Let us define honesty, respect and fairness.

Honesty is not simply the absence of lies but the lack of full disclosure of the truth.  In the workplace, everyone does not need to know everything. However anything relevant to the work or work environment does need full disclosure.  At times that might even mean a statement as simple as “I do not know but will find out and keep you posted”.   In your personal life, full disclosure is FULL DISCLOSURE.  The truth always comes out in he end.  It may seem like the kinder thing to tell white lies or outright lies at times but ultimately, it never works out that way.

Respect is one of the hardest words to define as it means different things to different people.   I regard respect as something earned first of all.  it does not pertain to age or job title or income.  It is relevant only to how you treat people, especially the vulnerable.  It is about how hard are you willing to work to achieve your goals and do you maintain a good set of morals while climbing your way up the ladder.  Are you willing to step on others on your way up or do you help lift others up to move with you instead?  Do you accept responsibility for your words and actions or do you push the responsibility for the things that go wrong onto others while taking credit for the work of others when ever you can?  Your responses to these questions will determine the definition of respect.

Fairness is a simple term to define unlike respect.   Fairness is hearing both sides of a story before making a judgement.  It is putting a situation into context before thinking you know how it feels.  It is judging a person for their heart and mind instead of their clothing, religion, skin colour, sexual orientation or gender.

The most common tool at work, used to destroy all of these things, is office gossip and rumour.  It seems to be a rampant disease in the workplace and has destroyed the careers and spirit of many hard working people.   A true leader will never participate in these behaviours and will do everything to maintain a professional environment at all times.  Be fair, be respectful and be honest.  It always gets returned.