You Have to Earn it: How to Command Respect at Work

If you expect to progress in your career, or even do your current job properly, you won’t manage it without respect from your boss or colleagues. However, even though respect is a huge part of corporate wellness, sometimes it gets demanded where it is not deserved. Your superiors may demand a certain level of respect from you, regardless of how competent they are, but shouldn’t respect be earned?

 

According to Manoj Khatri, author of What a thought!, a critically acclaimed book based on powerful ideas of some of the greatest thought leaders, ‘If you ask me, I would like to be respected only for my abilities and qualities, not because my position demands it. What perturbs me is that so many people are comfortable with fake respect. For example, I see so many subordinates who show respect to their superiors, whether or not they feel it inside. Usually they do so because they want to be politically correct. After all, they can’t afford to upset their boss!’

 

‘Showing respect is different from feeling respect,’ Khatri explains. ‘Genuine respect is felt inside. It is earned by living a life that inspires and motivates. It is objective and unbiased. But, it is not demanded. Yet, we find our elders, seniors, and superiors insisting that we respect them? The truth is that respect has nothing to do with age and seniority. In fact, it is possible that we may respect many people who are lesser than us in age, experience, or status. I respect many of my subordinates, not because they demand – they can’t! – but, because they command it through their work, their behaviour, and their attitude. On the other hand, I don’t feel respect for many of my seniors – because I find that they assert themselves needlessly, frequently to show their authority and feel in control.’

 

So then, how can you earn or command the respect of the people in your office, without demanding it? Khatri notes that, often, you reap what you sow in terms of respect in the workplace. ‘When we show genuine respect, the other respects us for our honesty and confidence,’ he says. ‘Yes, showing genuine respect to others implies that we are confident of ourselves to feel secure and therefore we can let the others know that we respect them. This brings us to self-respect…And we can’t expect others to respect us if we don’t respect ourselves.’

Categories: Command, Demand, feel, genuine, genuine respect, respect, superiors

Can People Tell if your Smile is Fake and Does it Matter?

Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘smiling is contagious’? It seems that the emotional and mental benefits of sharing a smile can translate from one person to another; if someone smiles and another person sees it, it makes them smile too, and this sense of happiness can boost their sense of wellbeing.

 

New research however, suggests that people do not respond in the same way to all smiles, as they can tell that some smiles are fake and some smiles are genuine. This insight into emotional wellness proves that the value of having a genuine smile may be greater than previously thought.

 

The results of the study seem to show that human behaviour is automatically programmed to be able to recognise and understand the difference between genuine human behaviour and insincere behaviour.

 

The new study has been reported in the renowned journal called Psychological Science. One of the lead professors on the study points out that every interaction between two human beings is different, but that people change their behaviour, attitudes, speech and nonverbal behaviour patterns in order to match the other person.

 

This means, then that certain types of smiles may occur in specific situations, depending on the cues that the other person receives. For example, there may be a scenario where a polite and more formal smile is used, and anyone else in that situation would then reciprocate with this kind of smile.

 

Genuine smiles, however, that occur spontaneously, look entirely different, and are usually visible across the whole face, including the eyes, whereas polite smiles simply involve moving the mouth. A genuine smile spreads across the face, engaging the eye muscles, the cheeks and the lips, and is a far more rewarding experience than a polite smile. It is interesting to note, however, that smile types are usually matched – so a genuine smile will be responded to with a genuine smile and a polite smile with a polite smile.

Categories: Fake, genuine, genuine smile, human behaviour, polite smile, Smile