Leading by example – it’s what you do more than what you say.

Get stuck in – be a contributor not just a leader. It is a trite term, but authenticity is important.

Be yourself, be open. Know what you are good at and share where you need help – it’s a team game, you can’t be good at everything.

People appreciate feedback – lots of small thank yous for jobs well done (but only for jobs well done). Absolutely candid about mutual feedback. Don’t duck the tougher messages. It’s a tough gig – be sure to find lighter, humorous moments.

The only job you start at the top, is digging a hole!

To earn respect you must embody all that you are asking of others.

Leading by example, with courage, accountability and honesty.

1) Take a genuine interest in the team members lives both in work and out of work.

2) Be seen to work as hard as they do, perception is everything.

3)Support them in their work efforts, after all they are doing it for you.

Finally, communicate good and bad news but be sure to celebrate the successes.

1. Show empathy, not weakness. For example, be aware of your teams challenges, roll up your sleeves and help out, but don’t let it slide into a situation where your team feels emboldened to drive your decisions (a startup is not a democracy).

2. Ditch the bean bags. Large companies need colourful beanbags and mindfuless rooms because they’re struggling with employee retention. This is a distraction in a startup; focus them on outcomes, thought leadership and changing the world.

3. Even if you haven’t gone to market, you already have your first customer. They’re your employees. Be present, give each team member your full attention during any meeting. Make promises that you can keep (and then keep them), Follow up on everything. Return every call.

I don’t believe that earning respect should be the main goal of a (good) leader. Instead, it may be better to focus simply on facilitating meaningful work. I’ve found that great team members want to deliver meaningful work for a number of reasons;

1. to increase their internal value (i.e a sense of achievement)
2. to increase their external (market) value
3. to increase their group value (social status).

If you are able to become a better facilitator that helps to deliver meaningful work, while supporting these three core values, it is likely that respect will be a bi-product. Put simply, serve your team – don’t expect them to serve you!

Be true to yourself and the others.

Walk the talk. Have integrity.

Be fair and respect others not only in the good times but more so in the bad times.

3 things made simple:

Work longer hours in the office than all of them. No one will respect you coming in for an hour a day while they are all working at least 8 hour days.

Understand everyone’s job within your business. You should be able to do everyone’s job within your business. By understanding and doing each person’s job you’ll be able to have real talk with each person about problems and improvements to their job within the business.

Acknowledge your own mistakes and make your team aware of how you made the mistake and how you plan on correcting that mistake.

All experience can be positive – Over the years I have learnt a huge amount from a range of great bosses and leaders where I have worked. Unfortunately, I have also learned a lot from those that were not so great. A great piece of advice is to take make all those experiences positive. Use the knowledge you have gained from all circumstances and utilise it to improve yourself. I always respect and treat my teams in the way that I know would make me happy. If you respect your staff, they will respect you.

Never be afraid to ask – The famous saying goes if you don’t ask you don’t get. Don’t be afraid to be ambitious and ask for more money, for extra holiday days. I don’t take it negatively when I am asked by my team, in fact I respect the approach. It is not always successful and a lot of the time it may not be possible, but don’t be afraid to try. The worst that can happen is you may get told no, but you also may be surprised.

Don’t be afraid of change – It is very easy to feel comfortable in a certain role and often people settle into a role where they are no longer being challenged. If you are not being challenged, quite often you are not progressing or learning new skills. It is incredibly important to keep chasing challenges, new responsibilities and to further your skill sets. This is how we progress in our careers and keep the roles we do interesting at the same time.

Listen – the team at Found are beyond talented at what they do and are shaping the agency every day. I make a real effort to listen (and really listen) to opinions and am always open to new suggestions/ideas we should be working and focusing on. I encourage everyone to have a voice at Found and work alongside me to create an agency of the future.

Recognise successes – we have a great scheme which encourages everyone within the business to reward their colleagues for their accomplishments – and for going above and beyond, it really does make a difference and helps to create a strong and supportive work environment.

Be a good human – show empathy, have a laugh with the team but of course, be fair and truthful when needed. If people are enjoying where they work it will have a knock on impact on their performance and loyalty towards the company.

1. Set a relevant, clear and understandable mission for your business and communicate that regularly to your team (more often than you think).

2. Have objectives that relate to your mission and measure those every week, month, and quarter but understand that it isn’t about hitting objectives that count, it’s about learning why you did or didn’t reach them and putting that learning into action.

3. Declare and live by your company values – don’t paint them on the walls, paint them into your operating model and build them into how you decide what to do, who you expect people to do it and how you judge success.

I have four ‘C’s:

1 – Comment

Ensure that you choose what you comment on and how you comment carefully. Offering feedback is key to getting the respect of teams and having an attitude of receiving constructive feedback is essential. Demonstrating empathy and an understanding of what drives and motivated individuals is crucial, also.

2 – Culture & Commerce

Create a business that allows individuals working styles to prosper. There should not be a ‘work my way or the highway’ attitude as recognising how people work differently and are motivated by different things can change a team dynamic for the better. Culture shouldn’t be (just) words on a poster on the wall, but an actual ‘tool kit’ to make working practices more useful and effective. That said, demonstrating and encouraging team members to have a ‘commercial mind’ is also key. Showing teams how they are affecting change, results and the commerce of a business enables teams to be motivated by a common goal. Culture, for me, is also about the hiring of new team members – not hiring in your own image, but thinking about the total skill sets of different team members to deliver against team targets.

3 – Collaboration

Encourage collaboration between members of a team and between oneself and a team. Nobody should be given a task to do entirely in a specific way – forming a strategy is key, but I don’t tend to lay down tactical and executional frameworks to achieve tasks. Finally, I try to always have a “Yes, but“ style of management (current colleagues say it is sometimes articulated by me saying “do want you want”!) – always striving to say ‘yes’ but qualifying that with clear objectives and parameters around a task.

1. Earn Your Respect – Lead By Example

We don’t respect those who simply bark orders expecting results. Lead by example. Show your team exactly what’s expected from them. They’ll better understand their roles, gain a clearer example of what’s required and respect that you’re leading instead of just coordinating.

2. Stick To Your Agreements

Your word is your bond. If you don’t stick to your word you’re demonstrating that what you say doesn’t matter. When you make a statement or declare your intentions make sure that you deliver every time.

3. Be A Part Of The Team

Every workforce is a team no matter how large or small. Each team member must pull their weight to be respected and those who fail to contribute are never respected. They are usually shunned by the entire team.

1. Don’t just be an observer.

Lead by example. Join in and help out wherever you can. Be a part of your team.

2. Have an open door policy and listen to your teammates.

Listening is extremely important hence two ears and one mouth. Don’t outright reject suggestions, discuss them with the whole team and then take action.

3. A little appreciation goes a long way.

Reward where it’s due. Carrot and stick don’t work in today’s work environment.

1. Give your teams the opportunity to develop together by properly investing in their growth.

It is astonishing how many teams do not discuss or address how they are working together as a team. When they meet the focus is on KPIs, delivery targets, staff, company issues etc – rarely (if ever) is it about them.

It is clear that most teams don’t know where to start when seeking to improve their team performance as they are so focussed on their KPIs. Team building or one off training days either haven’t worked, or do not sustain learning and change within the team.

What is apparent is that in order to impact performance the team needs to be strong on their inner game – how the team work together, and on their outer game — how the team works externally in the wider organisation.

2. Look at the levels of trust, resilience, focus and purpose around their inner game.

3. For the outer game they need to consider their ability to influence, adapt, take action and their agility.

1. Lead by example.

Be prepared to do the most menial tasks in the company. For instance, get on the phones and answer the calls from clients. Only by doing what you expect others to do will you discover their challenges. Then make changes where you can to make their job easier.

2. Be clear with your instructions and expectations.

Give praise as well as criticism. Only criticise constructively.

3. Be humble.

Admit when you are wrong. Apologise when you mess up.

1. Do the things you say you’ll do. No matter how small – if you say you’ll call, call.

2. Be committed. Your attitude towards the success of the business should never be in question.

3. Be human. Work is only one part of our lives, remember that.

Earning and keeping your team’s respect isn’t easy. I hope I deserve my team’s respect most of the time!

Three principles for me are: 1. Always start from our shared dream*

2. No front: I aim to be authentically myself at all times

3. Ask of others only what I’d be prepared to do myself

*The Oxehealth dream is to help save lives and improve healthcare for everyone

1. Trust is at an all-time low, with eight out of ten employees saying they’d trust a stranger more than their manager (Harvard Business Review). Leaders can build trust by delivering on their promises and then they can earn respect by giving it.

2. The pandemic has eroded command and control management at last (hurrah!) – it’s time to treat people as the responsible adults they are. The ability to ask the right questions and to listen and then act are key skills for any contemporary leader.

3. Communication could be improved in every business – the quick wins are: clarity, brevity, transparency, integrity and consistency.

1) Stand up straight.

Leaders are not gods; they’re human, just like their employees. If you act like you are beyond reproach and the sole source of truth within your company, then respect for you will shatter as soon as you encounter the messy reality of growing a business. So set an example to your team by taking ownership of your mistakes and demonstrating your ability to bounce back from them. You’re not a god, but you are someone who takes responsibility and is dedicated to self-improvement. Your employees will respect your transparency and respond in kind.

2) Walk the walk.

When you say something, you must mean it and act on it accordingly. Trust is your most valuable commodity as a leader, so make sure you consistently take actions that build trust within your organisation and be incredibly careful about taking any action that could undermine your team’s trust in you. Consistency is key and is the easiest way to build trust. When everybody knows their role, and understands your expectations of them and what they can expect from you, then trust naturally follows. Trust is the absolute foundation of respect – you can’t respect someone you don’t trust after all!

3) Run towards danger.

As a leader, you need to be willing to make sacrifices and take risks that other members of your team wouldn’t be able to bear. It’s important that your employees see you as someone who is highly dependable, and this is particularly important in times of crisis and when things go wrong. Respect is best forged through adversity. So show that you’re able to rise to the magnitude of events and never abdicate responsibility or point the finger during a crisis, even if someone in your team has let you down.

1. Treat your team as individuals. Try to take the time to understand what they need to succeed and give them that support. Appreciate that everyone is different.

2. Roll up your sleeves and do the work. It’s no good being a leader that’s forgotten how to deliver work or the pressures that teams face day-to-day with delivering projects.

3. Give credit, recognise and reward where it’s due. Sounds obvious but so many times I see egos get in the way of the team’s success.

Respect is built on trust, and trust starts with you as the founder.

Welcome everyone to the company trusting them to do a good job, then support them in doing so. Own up to what you felt you could have done better. Honesty allows for a safe space where your team can experiment and grow. It demonstrates you are like everyone else and builds strong bonds with your team.

Your “team” is a series of individuals, all with their hopes and fears. Being interested in what makes people tick and supporting them through the more challenging times galvanises your relationships.

Finally, “take the blame and share the success”. When things go wrong, check what you could have done better instead of blaming one individual for it. When things go right, don’t claim it all yourself, be sure to celebrate the team. How you treat one individual echoes across the company (e.g. “this could have been me”).

1. Listen and act

2. Empower

3. Lead from the front

These are probably the most important things you can “do”. However, they must be underpinned by solid values – honesty, integrity, mutual respect etc as well as a crystal clear vision of where the business is headed. That’s it!

Compassion, empathy, and respect

Sounds obvious, but many leaders get so caught up in the business that they forget to be human with their team. Understand and remind yourself every day that your team has a life outside of work and build your business to elevate your team inside and outside the company.

Recognise success in all its forms – Success isn’t just winning a pitch, hitting the deadline early, or making a sale. Sometimes it’s simply turning up, learning the most basic fundamental skill, speaking up in a meeting, or coming up with a great idea.

Celebrate the journey, not the result – You don’t win every pitch, not every project goes smoothly, but focusing only on the end result can lead to negative views of work, clients even colleagues – Leaders must perpetuate that the journey is more important than the end result and celebrate the work that goes into it.

I am relatively new to the role of CEO, still I have been growing and managing the business and the team at PharmaReview for the last 10 years. For me the following rules apply:

1. Listen hard to what your team has to say; you have as much to learn from them as they do from you.

2. Don’t hesitate to make difficult decisions, particularly when it comes to letting people go; when you know that the fit isn’t it right you don’t do anyone any favours by persevering.

3. Have fun, and enjoy your job! Your enthusiasm will be infectious.

Attract the best and brightest people by:

1) having a mission to create a revolution, not just “getting rich”,

2) be completely open and transparent about your own weak points and how you depend on your colleagues to help out with that

3) give people maximum freedom to make mistakes and find the best place for themselves where they can add unique value.

1) Demonstrate a link between words and action. Words without action are meaningless and undermine credibility.

2) Communicate transparently and in line with the frequency that you promised. If you say you are going to update the business on performance every week, make sure you do so. I’ve also learned that as uncomfortable as difficult messages can be to deliver (e.g. we are behind target) they are much better than trying to sweep up the mess that is created by pretending problems do not exist.

3) Don’t micromanage. My view is people need space to be their best, and they need to trust that they are allowed to think independently.

This is a challenging question and one with no magic formula! Here are three things I do to try and earn the trust and respect of my team:

Lead through values. Values-based leadership is vital to show teams not only what needs to be done, but why. Our values underpin our behaviours, and one thing I try to consistently communicate and live are my personal values and our brand values.

Be transparent. I believe transparency in leadership is vital in building trust and earning respect from my teams. Sharing openly and vulnerably about situations helps to build a culture where everyone can be open and vulnerable. In the past I’ve tried to be a leader who’s always ‘got it together’ or ‘has the right answers’ but I find it much better to be honest and open with my teams, especially in challenging situations and to then work through things together.

The power of empathy. My personality is more visionary in nature and often focused on the ‘bigger picture’ and direction of the organisation. It can be easy for me to not understand or engage with how my team is feeling or what they think about what I say. Over the years I’ve had to learn empathy; slowing down to listen, understand and engage with my team, rather than just ‘leading from the front’.

Give more before you ask more.

Feedback, feedback, feedback (and look for the good, as well as the areas to improve)

Slow down when people start out, everything is new, it’s exhausting – then ramp up fast when they’re ready, progress is non-linear, slow slow slow – fast!

1. My number one piece of advice for anyone trying to galvanise a team, myself included, is ‘treat everyone like an adult’. It is astounding to me how many businesses choose not to do this and have a somewhat puritanical, Victorian work-house style approach to their staff. Of course people need to go to the doctor, some people do their best work at night, no one is trying to steal stamps, and if they are, have at it: over-policing anything is a recipe for disaster where respecting one another as equals is the path to success.

2. I wish someone had told me to lean into myself more, but no one did and maybe I wouldn’t have been receptive if they had? But actually, a lot of the feedback I got was about making myself smaller or more conventional or less ambitious or quieter or slower. It took me too many years to realise that I was at my best professionally when I was being completely me which is why I encourage everyone we work with to be ult-them, this is how people shine. I love their weirdnesses, their idiosyncrasies, their foibles – it is often in the messy-middle of every human being that you find what they are best at.

3) Finally, nothing gives you the respect of the team like getting down and dirty with them, and not for the sake of it. If you are truly in it with them, finishing decks at 2am, painting offices, defending their honour to rude clients, even when they were wrong – this is how a team knows you are truly one of them and this is essential. Don’t cross that magic meridian though, you need to be in it with them but keep enough distance that they come to you when they need something. It is a tricky balance but you can never forget what a team needs you to be, a leader through and through.

1. Clear decisions

Teams respect clarity and a sense of control. Even if they don’t like what you’re saying, if they understand the greater good context and you’re firm with it, you’ll be fine. The worst thing you can do it make NO decision. The second worst thing you can do it immediately backtrack on that decision when it’s questioned. Be ready to steel man your arguments (https://conversion-rate-experts.com/steel-manning/) but also show that you did genuinely listen and factor in counterarguments when you communicate a decision.

2. Based on the business as a whole

I strongly suggest always expressing any opinion or request in terms of how it would benefit the business as a whole rather than on emotions or instincts (even if they are a bit as well, which is not a bad thing; businesses hinge on this sometimes). This applies whether you’re a junior or a grand executive type. It’s not about what makes your world better, or avoiding situations where you feel threatened (like promoting someone from under you), or doing more of the projects you like – those things will all come good anyway if you base your decisions and discussions in the business as a whole. What will help us hit this year’s target? Or even next year’s? Will promoting and developing this person do it? Or temporarily focussing on this part of the business to protect the whole? Focus your attention on what will help the business overall the most, which will protect jobs and open up new opportunities for people – and communicate why you are doing this over and over.

3. Have tricky conversations quickly and do them well

To avoid many of my mistakes, read “Crucial Conversations”. Oh and be nice. Don’t shout. Be encouraging. Keep a sense of humour. Don’t burn bridges. It’s a long game.

All love, luck and wisdom to you, Lucy

Earning the respect of your team is critical to success.
In my experience, respect comes with;

(1) relinquishing control and giving your teams the autonomy required to perform their roles effectively.

(2) Communicate clearly and often, be open to feedback, and deliver on your promises.

(3) it’s your job as a leader to focus on the future and to navigate the winding road ahead. Trust your teams to manage the present by getting out of their way!

Be honest – do what you say you’ll do, deliver on your promises and have the difficult conversations face-to-face.

Be authentic – not to be to “live laugh love” about it but be 100% yourself – people see through fakeness and if you’re leading from your true beliefs it’s a lot easier

Be vulnerable – I’ve had my best moments when I’ve admitted to my team I f*cked up or I needed help or I’m not sure of an answer. Admit what you’re good at and admit what you’re bad at (ten pin bowling and getting receipts for drinks)

Have Humility – own getting things wrong, making mistakes, asking for help, share what you are learning, taking on board suggestions and making them happen.

Empower People – get out of the team’s way and give them the freedom to own what they are doing, make mistakes and take the credit for successes.

Do The Right Thing – in any given situation there is the right thing that is hard and the wrong thing that is easy. Focus on working through the hard.

Establish a clear WHY for your business. WHAT you do and HOW you do it are not key drivers for stakeholders, whether they are team members or customers. Ideally, WHY should be well defined – thereby creating a road map for future products and services.

• Allow anyone in the team to change a process
• Decentralise decision making and let individuals make decisions, not department heads
• Get to market fast: break stuff, push boundaries and iterate processes
• Remove unnecessary steps – such as having too many people at meetings (if you must have them) or unnecessary product features
• Optimise your product or service continuously and stay agile

1) Be honest: admit when you are wrong, give credit where credit is due, and most importantly put ego aside
2) Do deals with integrity: do not try to look for ways to avoid honouring terms, do not negotiate too hard against new joiners, even when someone is leaving the company treat them with respect since this sets the tone for everyone that is still at the company, and try to be receptive to the the different incentives that drive people; there is so much more than just more money or responsibility
3) Listen to everyone: title, experience, personality etc are all only indicators of where the best answers may come from but they can really come from anywhere. Building a diverse team in terms of ethnicities, genders, sexualities, ages etc gives every conversation a more open minded approach

1. Create a vision of where you want to be and let your team decide how you get there.
2. Build an inclusive culture where everyone is not only valued but differences are celebrated.
3. Praise your team for any success (even if it was yours); take the blame for any failure (even if it was your team’s).

You will never know what you are capable of until you try. You can grow in unimaginable ways. Being
an entrepreneur is an exciting journey, one where you very rarely know where you are going to end
up! Never be afraid of change. Embrace mistakes as opportunities to learn and most of all enjoy the
ride!

1. Demonstrate a passion and ambition for the current collective goals of the team, as well as a clear picture of the future collective goals of the team.
2. Act consistently and fairly to all team members and demonstrate similarly high expectations of yourself in all that you do.
3. Build trust and understanding on a professional and personal level.

The first thing to note about respect in general is that no matter how much you might want it, you are likely to only get it by being yourself. This means that if you’re the sort of person that is going to be respected, it will come naturally. If not, you probably need to consider whether you should look at how you come across in general.

Consider how you’d like to be treated if you worked for you! How do you speak to your team and are you open and honest in the way you conduct yourself? There’s pretty much nothing my team doesn’t know about me or the company. I don’t remember the last time i had a meeting with the door closed.

Have fun! No one wants to ‘go to work’. People want to be part of something bigger than both ‘the boss’ and any one part of the company. If you’re hiring the right people, they will believe in what you are looking to achieve and not only will they respect you, you’ll respect them too.

Acknowledgement of works big and small: Often tasks that may seem smaller and less significant as part of the grander scheme can have the biggest impacts, appreciating the staff who have been tasked with the gruelling 2-week data audit is just as important as patting your project leaders for a job well done (we’ve all been there and we know how it feels to be overlooked).

Be better than cancel culture: If a member of your team slips up, makes a mistake and or derails a project deadline, it’s easy to point the finger and focus the blame towards that individual. We live in a cancel culture where very often we’ll overlook the years of good work and that they have delivered over the years and judge them for one mistake. Remembering that we are a team, working towards the same goal can help nuteralise this blame bubble and get things back on track.

Give and ask for honest feedback: Providing honest feedback to your team is important, understanding pitfalls and follies help them grow professionally. However, consider this a two-way street, you’ll get a much better response from your team if the feedback is bi-directional and when it is, you’ll find that it can grow your strengths and improve on your weaknesses as well.

Earning respect from your team is critical to the success of any leader. Respect and leadership go hand in hand. Three things can leaders do to earn the respect of their teams are:

1) Respect your staff – it works both ways. In order for your team to respect you, you must, in turn, show them that you respect them too. Getting to know individuals on a personal level, as well as professionally will show that you appreciate them and will improve work relationships.

2) Adopt a positive attitude – negativity can have an incredibly detrimental effect on employee productivity, so it is important to maintain a positive attitude to keep your team motivated and onside.

3) Have an open-door policy – it is important that your employees feel like they can come to you with issues or when they need help, so make sure that they know that you are always available for them.

Assertiveness
Understanding how to be assertive is crucial – too many managers/leaders think “it is my way or the highway” – wrong! it is knowing when to step back and say “you’re right we’ll do it your way” OR “I hear what you say but I would like to to this my way for this/that reason” – so, knowing when to step back and when to step forward!

Appreciation
Most staff, colleagues (and I am no different) like to be appreciated and thanked. A simple “thank you” or “well done” will go a very long way, often more important than extra £s. In our company Webbers Property Services Ltd we like to send a “WELL DONE” card to individuals that have gone over & above signed by a Director

Integrity
Leaders must in my view be able to “walk the walk” and demonstrate what is required or expected in terms of standards, it is about staff seeing a clear demonstration from their manager/leader that they really understand what they are asking staff to do.

Despite what you might believe, you don’t always know best!! So listen to your team, encourage them to be open with their ideas and most importantly, act on those ideas. So;
1 Listen,
2 Encourage them to speak up whoever they are and whatever their role
3 Act on their ideas (oh and a bonus 4th … give them the cudos for the ideas!!)

Walk the talk.. let your actions inspire others to action
Be clear in your vision, expectations and objectives.. and then support and empower people to accomplish aligned
Help those who are struggling to do well and to help those who are doing well to do excel.

Being the leader does not mean that you have earned respect, leaders need to earn respect by demonstrating that they value employees and prioritise their growth.

First, if you as leaders want your direct reports to respect you, it is important that you first show them the respect they need. Secondly, when employees come to you, you should give them your undivided attention and really listen to what they have to say. Last but not least, employees want to feel like their hard work is being appreciated or they are likely to be demotivated.

Respected leaders think about making others better, they don’t leach, they lead.

• Listen: Listen openly to all opinions … sometimes the quietest voice in the room is the most powerful
• Humility: Remember that you may be the boss today … but tomorrow you may not
• Detail: take time to understand your product and your team

Lead by example – if you want others to work hard for you you need to show them what it means to work hard
Listen not just speak
Don’t lean on titles, treat everyone like a human being

It is important to know where your strengths are, but to respect the strengths and skills of others. Ensuring that they know that you need and appreciate what they do, and what they bring to the table, is key. Providing a forum for bold creative thinking and exploring opportunities without feeling the fears of failure, where there is ‘no such thing as a bad idea’.

Aim for consensus where the team share the same values and the same goal.

Treating everyone fairly and equally is also crucial. I would say that often pride comes before a fall, and to never let one’s head get too big. Not only will you lose the respect of others, but you will lose sight of what is important. Ultimately you may need to rely heavily on your team if you slip up.

Finally, whilst doing all of the above, you must also show that you are not afraid to make tough decisions and have difficult conversations.

I believe that all these attributes will make a good and respected leader.

Serve first, eat last, and lead from a position of equanimity and consistency of values, no matter the situation.

Effective leadership is about both authenticity and skill. Followers want to be led by a person not a role holder or position filler. Be yourself with more skill.

Unless you are clear about your purpose and your values and are doing something that you really care about, it is difficult to act as a leader. Integrity and passion will always earn respect.

Listen to and value people’s contributions, expose your team to new experiences and opportunities, help them to prepare for future roles. Create a safe, supportive, enjoyable but challenging working environment.

Firstly, respecting the team in a tone that’s bold and fun and spontaneously sounding as if you’ve connected with everyone and not seen as the big bad boss is key.. Ya know, you and even me we all get addicted to OUR way of succeeding. Maybe it’s making a lot of money. Maybe it’s being the best in a certain area of life. Maybe it’s maximizing our looks. Maybe it’s having a great body. There’s nothing wrong with these things, but at a certain point, they no longer represent growth because we already know how to do them. We’re no longer learning were not just teams were a tribe our mission is working to win our customers smile.

Our wins of success and leadership can become our own personal prison of validation. They can make us afraid to try in areas where we don’t typically win – areas that make us feel like a complete amateur. But those areas can represent new growth, new learning, or just a fun new experience of working life. Mindlessly repeating our wins can be a distraction from what we really need to focus on to be happier, emotionally healthier, and more at peace in closing sales and having a simpler happier work life.

Work on not repeating your trips and falls and most of all our failures, however. don’t forget to scrutinize your wins too, especially if they never evolve.

The Smile team all talk like an actual HUMAN’S because we put people first, and people don’t talk like corporations.
My team at Smile want to bring a little FUN to everything we do because we think having fun is also a way to improve customers’ lives. We are always INCLUSIVE because we think life is better when everyone feels welcome to join in.
We want our energy to be CONTAGIOUS because we love mobile and want everyone to love it as much as we do.
We’re a team whos not afraid to boldly speak the truth and CALL B.S. because we think the category can be full of it sometimes in telecoms.
(But we’d never be mean-spirited—we poke with a smile because we’re not a bullys.)

We are not like the other carriers.
Which means nothing we do should look or feel like the rest of the industry. We treat people like they are actual people—not transactions. We put their needs and lives first.
So naturally, we use a conversational tone . No corporate lingo . No B .S . JUST SMILE VIBES.

God Bless, and Smile on;)

Levi Clarke
CEO of Smile
www.gosmile.uk

The biggest thing a leader can do to earn respect from their team.

Remain calm. No matter what happens. Calmness is infectious and it starts from the top. Keeping calm under stress and challenges is how you gain respect and lead. If your calm, your team will be calm and you will make better decisions. So will your team.

I wish I had known this when I started my journey. During those times of chaos, stress and challenge when I used to let the emotion and frustration take control. The decisions I made and the effect I had on the team would have been far better. Success would have been far quicker.

In my opinion, these three things are:
1) Leaders should be ready to do all types of work, which they expect their teams to do. No bureaucracy! Not red-tape culture!
2) Always be respectful and polite to your team members. If you are angry with someone, discuss with that team member in a one-to-one meeting, not in front of others.
3) Always be more punctual and hard-working than your team members. Be on time in the team meetings.

For every business to thrive it is essential that all parties benefit throughout the supply chain but particularly the end user as client satisfaction and repeat business are essential to longevity and always remember that your business personality s a reflection of its leadership team.

I find that a lot of entrepreneurs are product, task and sales focused and can pay less attention to the people and the finance aspects of their business. This is not because they are bad people but rather because they have to make it work to get it off the ground. This approach works well when you start out as a small team with a clear purpose. However, once you step over 10-15 people you need help.

That help should look like a part-time Finance and part-time HR Director. You will not be able to afford or have enough work for either full time but you will start to need that level of advise. So we are talking about a few days a month for each and you must ensure they attend your weekly or monthly management team meetings.

Typically you need an outsourced fees clerk in finance supported by an experienced part-time finance head in the form of a senior financial controller or Finance Director. In HR the admin support is typically your office manager, so pick a naturally happy one and then you need a part-time HR Director, who should have been an HR Director somewhere else before hand. These two key roles and advisors will keep you focused, out of trouble and most importantly will lift a huge amount of stress off your shoulders, so you can focus on growing the business.

Leadership is not management. Leaders need first to inspire, and then create the right culture for great people to succeed. They also need to step in and step up during tough times. Here are 3 things that I’ve learnt over the years. First, share both good and bad news – it’s the only way to build trust. Second, create safety by being the first to admit you’ve been wrong, sharing what you’ve learnt from the error, and moving on. Third, be a constant storyteller – the story of ‘us’ as a group of people doing ‘our thing’ is incredibly powerful and something that leaders cannot delegate or outsource.

I believe employees respect their leaders because they see leaders doing hard things well. They see hard tasks been dealt with on a constant basis and respect this. When a leader says they will do something they should do it and follow this rule as it creates respect and shows leadership. Leaders should take controversial stances and feel they have the power to say no when it’s the right decision and have complete clarity always

1). Respect your own team.
2). Be clear about your vision.
3). Work harder than they do, if you can.

Respect isn’t a one-way street, a leader should make sure every single member of the team feels valued; that they matter and are important to the strategic direction and success of the business.

Respect is also earned by creating opportunities for the teams to grow, develop and shape their own learning.

Finally, having absolute faith in the team is key. Micro-managing doesn’t generate trust, nor will it earn respect. Leadership is about far more than pointing towards the future, it also means giving the team the tools, the drive and the ambition to go out and achieve it.

Sadly many employees are starved of mentoring time despite it being the single most important factor in learning and career development. At Guide we allocate at least one hour per week for personalised mentoring, plus we love to record and reflect on the meetings using our own platform so nothing gets lost and it’s easily re-watched. These intimate sessions are the perfect way to bond, iterate and benchmark for our whole team, myself included. No more “good-works”, just succinct task-related feedback, good or bad. This means the whole team learns from each-other.

Lead by example – if you want a strong work culture, be visible and in early. A strong start to the day sets the day up for a productive day.

Praise and encourage – when employees do well, tell them well done! If someone is performing above their level, give a pay increase early, don’t wait for annual reviews.

Show you are in control – if a difficult decision needs made, or tricky conversation with a client, or having to let an employee go that doesn’t fit the work culture, making that decision will gain you respect by the rest of the team.

1) Build a reputation where you are part of the team and you back your team 100%, this instills loyalty and respect. If the team fails, its the teams fault, not a single member. We learn from it and do better next time.
2) Lead by example, never ask a team member to do something you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself, The leader can empty bins, you are setting a good example and flattening the team hierarchy.
3) Listen, this takes time and trust, but if you listen to your team and act on their inputs; people are much more likely to be engaged in the task at hand, they will share the companies goals.

1) Clarity
Be clear – on goals, measures, priorities, direction, on everything! Clarity can’t really be overdone, so try to reinforce it wherever you can. When people have clarity, they’re much more likely to succeed.

2) Serving
Try to serve your team, rather than have it serve you. Focus on developing and enabling the talent you have assembled.

3) Culture
As a leader, your own tone and behaviours will set those of others; culture is a consequence of people’s nature, it can’t really be synthesized.

Leadership is a multi-faceted gift. Can it be learned? I am not sure although there is no doubt potential leaders are inspired by other leaders habits and actions. If you are placed in a position of leadership then clearly someone has recognised some gift or facet in you, what you and how you conduct yourself. Earning respect from your team is critical and here are my main three tips for success.

You work for the Team: You will need to inspire, learn, listen, support, protect and motivate your team. They will need help. When they make mistakes, and you will take the responsibility. Remember you can achieve a great deal provided you do not mind who takes the credit! The staff are the assets of the company not the machinery or plant or what is in the warehouse!

Recruit the best: if you have done your job members of the team will have been selected for their field of expertise which will be far greater that your experience in that field. I always sought individuals like this. Your role is leadership and facilitating the teams operations. Also developing the team. Helping them to do their jobs, removing obstacles, fighting their battles; loyalty is total and critical to success.

Strategic Vision/Mission: Most people think tactically and will be familiar with strategic planning, but it is not a skill many possess. David Collis, writing in the Harvard Business Review article in 2008 (2), said:

“It is a dirty little secret that most directors don’t know what the elements of a strategy are, which makes it impossible to develop one. Any strategy that cannot explain why customers should buy your product or service is doomed to failure. The result? An astonishing number of organisations, executives, front line employees and all between are frustrated and confused because no strategy exists”.

Therefore, it is your job to make sure that your team understands how they are connected to achieving the strategic vision or the mission. If they clearly see this connection, it will earn their respect.

An example of getting it right: President Kennedy was visiting NASA in 1962 and was walking around he came across a chap sweeping one the hangers. “What you’re your job here?” he asked, “I am helping to put a man on the moon Mr President”

Be seen. Learn as much as possible about the business and what the people/teams contribute. Delegate authority with responsibility and expect and understand that people will make mistakes – including yourself! Positively encourage feedback – positive and negative – and act on promises for improvement. Treat everyone with respect – always.

1. Never ask anyone to do anything you haven’t done (or wouldn’t be prepared to do) yourself
2. Always strive to learn from those that rely on your leadership
3. Truly care about the people in your team, not just care about what they can do for you

1 Don’t be afraid to take risks; admit when you are wrong
2 Support your employees’ watch their backs
3 Lead by example, don’t be afraid to roll your sleeves up and get involved

Leaders need to listen above anything else IMHO! This doesn’t mean agreeing & actioning every team members suggestion, but they do want to be heard to respect you. It’s active listening which is essential, paraphrasing back to the person to ensure you’ve understood, as opposed to looking at your computer or anything else for that matter: give them your undivided attention.

Lead from the front with confidence. If you don’t display confidence it is difficult for the team to be. Nobody wants to be led by a shrinking violet. Being confident is essential to earn success & if you don’t feel it, act as if you are!

Catch your team or any of the individuals doing something positive – it can be the smallest thing – praising them sincerely for it. It is all too easy to criticise, and although there are nearly always times when criticism is important, balance it with compliments.

1. Having the right team is really important, particularly as companies evolve. As important as it is to hire the right people, you also need to have a framework in place to move people on when required

2. Cross team communication is important, especially when working remotely. People can often become isolated when working remotely and your leadership role needs to look at managing and identifying this.

3. Have a process – if people understand the process you are working towards, they can independently contribute without needing your involvement, allowing the team to gel and company to grow

1. Be open and transparent, never presume you know more than your team. The team will respect you more if you highlight areas you need help with and begin to trust you.
2. Take the time to get to know your team and what makes them tick, their likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses and build this into your business strategy. Ask and consult staff over proposed changes, listen to the feedback and take this into account so that you bring your staff team with you on the journey and they understand the business direction and strategy.
3. lead by example, get involved in the work, be an accountable leader. Be emotionally intelligent and in tune with your team and how they are feeling. Recognize that the informal work culture is just as influential as the formal work culture, so role model appropriate standards and behaviors with your team.

I believe there are a lot of things a leader can do to earn trust and respect from his team, and based on his/her identity, some works better than others; this is what has worked for me until now:
1-Understand that trust and respect is not something easy to earn. Results like it or not will help you to gain that faster.
2-Set clear and transparent principles based on meritocracy, truth and transparency and stay consistent even when you have to take unpopular decisions; It is not easy, but it pays off in the long run.
3- Have a maintain your words and promises attitude

Share your vision, frequently and in detail
Be honest about any challenges confronting the business
Roll your sleeves up and muck in to get the job done

Listen more than you talk. Your are responsible for having a great team. Let their ideas and energy drive what they do. Your role is to guide and support

Admit to your mistakes. You will make them everyday. Be honest and open, then your team will see it is ok to do the same. It is easier to clean up a mistake early rather than late!

Make work fun. Sometimes we deal with heartbreaking situations and there are always outside influences to our lives. Make work a positive and safe place through the attitude support you offer.

My top tips that have stood me in good stead whilst growing a GBP multimillion medical group are:
1) lead by example. I’ve always tried to show my team that I will try harder than anyone to achieve the goals we set for the business. This makes everyone else try hard too!
2) Know more about our business, markets and medical field than anyone else in my organisation. This drives confidence, respect and trust.
3) Be humble. I’ll make anyone a cup of coffee, and I take an interest in everyone. I’m just a person, and that helps to show my team I’m human and approachable too.

Thank you!

There is often a misconception that a good manager makes a good leader. Someone who has instinctively been good at ‘getting things done’ doesnt always possess the traits to be a leader, to inspire others and achieve through empowerment. The following are my top 3 tips for others starting out to develop their leadership style.

1. You have two ears and one mouth – use them in proportion. Too often people are quick to interject and are listening to respond as opposed to listening to understand. Take a step back and consider the message and what is being said, and not just how it may or may not align to your current way of thinking.

2. Empower others, achieve more: Letting go is one of the hardest things to do if you have historically focused out output or outcomes directly. By giving others autonomy in their roles you actually have broader reach

3. Admit when you are wrong. Bad leaders blame others, good leaders use their failures as an example of where it went wrong and also then to demonstrate and share the learning to others, including those who directly work for them.

Its hard to identify just 3, but mine top three would be:
1. Listen – have the confidence to take in ideas and take on criticism
2. Be brave – admit when you’re wrong, model taking risks and sometimes failing
3. Give credit when its due – stealing credit and ideas is a sure fire way to loose respect, leadership should be about elevating others, not putting them down.

In my opinion, the first and most important thing for leaders to consider when seeking respect from teams is awareness of motivation. Every team member and employee will be motivated by something. In most cases, the obvious response here would be salary but the reality is that there is usually something, or a number of things, that lie behind this. Getting to know team members, what inspires them and what motivates them can help leaders to factor this into day-to-day roles and working life, to ensure that each team member has the opportunity to do what they enjoy and in turn provides an even more productive working output.

The second thing leaders can do is to ensure that every team members has both a manager and a mentor. A manager provides the role of business success and ensures that each employee is doing the work required for a business to reach their targets, whilst a mentor is ultimately there to help the individual to succeed in their own career growth and development. Mentoring can be a really powerful way of ensuring engagement, respect and cross-departmental understanding.

Finally, for a leader to earn respect from their team or teams, they have got to be approachable, personable and open-minded. Whether that is through monthly. quarterly or even weekly meetings, or simply ensuring their team can always contact them via tools like Teams or Slack, being approachable and accessible is vital for success.

1. Treat everyone as equals irrespective of pay or responsibility – everyone deserves to be treated with respect and no organization can function unless everyone pulls their weight and everyone’s effective contribution is necessary to accomplish goals.
2. Absolute honesty and integrity – open and honest communication keeps everyone informed and if people leave as a result of bad news your organization is better off without negative players.
3. Trust and faith in your people – encourage and coach everyone to achieve more than they ever thought they could and in most cases they will.

1) Have integrity, honesty & morality
2) Make people feel important, listen to them, great to see you/hear
3) Be knowledgeable and always seek to learn stuff

1) Provide clear goals and objectives. Offer constant support and guidance in achieving them.
2) Create a safe environment for the team to discuss not only what is working, but also what isn’t and encourage share their experiences and challenges.
3) Lead by example. Help remove organisational hurdles and be a resource they can leverage where necessary.

Earning respect as a leader is so not what I thought it was when I was a young whippersnapper starting out as a manager. In those heady days of the 90s, I thought it was:
Work Hard, Play Hard
Always be the cleverest,
First-in, last-out leadership
Earn respect.

Many years later, however, I know that not to be true. Simple leadership traits that I live and breathe, and constantly bang on about in fact… are authenticity, clarity and support.

Authenticity – bringing your whole self to work, your whole flawed vulnerable self, is absolutely vital to get teams to trust you as a leader.

Clarity – be clear set direction keep people informed and connected.

Support – this cannot be a one size fits all it’s all about whatever the team needs as individuals and that means paying attention to individual learning styles.

Ultimately, leaders should be a floor beneath their feet not a ceiling on their back.

Trust those you hire – if you’ve hired someone you believe to be an expert let them do their job. Give them space and trust their opinion & advice. After all that’s what you’ve hired them for. People will not feel valued if you take advice from someone else that is not as qualified as them on the matter. Listen to what others have to say but pass it on to the expert. If not, you will lose a great resource.

Have a no-asshole policy – make sure you build a culture were grievances are expected, where people feel confortable calling out people for their behaviour and comfortable to hold each other accountable. This also means that you don’t favour anyone and keep an open mind and clear view of people’s behaviours, even if they are high-performing. If you don’t you will quickly create a toxic environment people will not want to work in.

Hire for passion – you want people who have a passion for what they do and who bring a great energy to the workplace. They want to learn about your business and want to see it succeed. Even if they are not the most qualified, they can always learn on the job – and you can train them. I always like the view of “What happens if we train them and they leave, asks the CFO. What happens if we don’t and they stay, says the CEO”.

Value your integrity and that of others
Seek out the ‘difficult’ things to do – don’t take the easy path
Be authentic, grateful and forgiving as often as you can

Honesty: Treat your team like you’d want to be treated yourself. This might not be everyone’s style but tell it like it is. Praise when its due and discuss when things aren’t working. Don’t sugar coat stuff and avoid the $hit sandwich – everyone knows when that’s coming!

Make ’em look good – all too often I see leaders take credit for successes when in reality its been someone in the team that’s been instrumental. My job is to make everyone in the team look good. I don’t mean this in a superficial way. I mean giving clear, specific credit when someone has made a difference.

Deliver – your team and their families rely on your business to perform. Avoid bull$hitting your team with hype and hyperbole. They’ll come back to bite you. Instead, focus on delivering and making sure your team know that you’re good to your word so that they can be confident that the business (and they) will thrive.

Collaborate with your team, let them be part of the decision making.
Be transparent and honest about what your goals are as a company and how they contribute to those goals.
Empower them by giving them autonomy, and find out what drives them and motivates them and work towards helping them progress.

1) Don’t be afraid to admit being wrong

The realisation that you’re wrong is evidence that you’ve learned something new. Yet, most of us are anti-learning machines that avoid admitting being wrong, which makes us appear unintelligent.

2) Listen to your team but don’t obey them

Listen to your team members’ problems but don’t feel bound to the solutions they propose. It’s your job to come up with solutions, not theirs.

3) Trust your intuition and educate yourself

Intuition is powerful, when you’ve fed it with loads of relevant experience. You should trust Venus Williams’ intuition on tennis but not Formula 1. Similarly, sharpen your intuition by deepening your experience.

1. Listen – More ears less mouth. A great leader can only understand the complexity of the challenges before them if they listen to the team rather than dictating what those problems are that need to be fixed.
2. Acknowledge efforts – even if the team has not succeeded at the task set before them.
If there was a genuine attempt at meeting a deadline or achieving the goal then the time, energy and intent of the team should be acknowledged. Ensuring a lessons learned process is followed to ensure that any failings contribute to success in the long term, is key.
3. Accountability – this includes the leader acknowledging when they are wrong, and apologising when they have given poor steer or made a bad decision.

Thank you,
Danielle

You can’t earn respect if people don’t trust you so always do what you say you are going to do, no matter how small. Credibility will inspire confidence and lead to trust.
Leadership is a behaviour so what you do when you don’t think your teams are looking is how you will be judged
No-one gets it right 100% of the time so don’t be afraid to admit it when you get one wrong. You are human after all

Lead by example, practice what you preach and make sure your teams know they can come to you anytime about anything.

1 – Give praise is number one for me! If you do not give your teams praise how do you expect them to flourish, grow and believe in themselves even more. If the moral of your team is high your outputs and achievements as a company are even higher.

2 – Be on their level at times, let them see you doing the work they do occasionally, don’t sit on that pedestal all the time, it can be a lonely place up there.

3 – Reward their good work with bonus’s and incentives.

Having led teams, and been part of a number of teams over the years, I think the main thing that leaders can do to earn respect is to make sure everyone clearly understands their role, what’s expected
of them and each team members feels that they are a valued member of the team. Obviously, leading by example is important to earn respect but it’s also critical that leaders set and communicate a clear vision for the team so that everyone understands how their individual role and objectives helps the team and the organisation achieve the overall aims.

The latest leadership research shows the prevalent leadership style is Command and Control (over 80%), so why do we get told so often by leaders that it is not!
What I see is that the day-to-day stuff takes over and we become so focused on the task and operational aspects of the role that we end up managing rather than leading. Somehow leaders must turn off the auto pilot and step back, remembering their main role is to inspire, motivate, empower, and develop others.
As leaders, we need to understand more about our own leadership brand, who we are and our emotional intelligence, focusing more on positive behavioural and attitudinal change.
What 3 things can leaders do to earn the respect of their teams: Be empathetic, authentic, and humble with positive confidence.

My leadership snippet is stunningly simple – treat staff, customers & suppliers as you would like to be treated.

Simple, but it works.

Be honest, if you people believe you are telling them the truth, both good and bad, they are more likely to follow you when you ask them to do the hard things.

Learn to laugh at yourself, do not take yourself too seriously. You are human after all and you will make mistakes.

Exhibit the behaviours and attributes you want your people to exhibit. You cannot ask people to be team players if you always talk about you; you cannot expect people to be resilient if you shout when things get tough; you cannot expect people to feel confident in being assertive if you never listen to them.

Respect is no longer earned from being a know-it-all, infallible, micro-managing leader – those leaders are dinosaurs and setting themselves up for failure. So my experience for the modern leader who gains their team’s respect is that (1) they create a clear motivating purpose for the team to buy into, (2) they genuinely listen and take onboard what the team tells them, and (3) they focus on coaching their team members to grow and develop.

– Work harder. Be hands-on when required
– Listen to your team. An internal team satisfaction survey every N month is really helpful
– Be nice. Don’t be strict

Firstly, you need to acknowledge that you need to earn the respect of your team. It’s not a given. Set regular 1-2-1’s and turn up (on time!), don’t ever cancel for a client meeting etc.

Secondly, ask for and give honest feedback. This is not as easy as it sounds as you need to build the right culture that fosters this type of working practice. Employees need to have a voice as some of the biggest company successes will come from ideas from your team.

Finally, recognise one size doesn’t fit all. Tailor your reward strategy to what motivates your team. Genuinely care about their well-being. Nothing should be a tick box exercise.

If you use any of this, can you please ensure our company shows as Identify HR (www.identify-hr.com).
Thanks
Denise

Establish a common purpose and narrative; be resilient and prepared to do anything you’d ask of your team; be calm and compassionate.

Environment for success – ensuring that your team has every opportunity to be successful in your business, it needs designing from recruitment to active supportive management and development,
Flawless execution – getting things right first time requires solid processes and consistent sound project management. Learn from what goes wrong and correct failings
Show me the Money! – Great ideas that can’t substantiate how they will add value are not great ideas! Documentation needs to clearly show the value and projects owners need to be accountable for delivering that value.

Always take the time to listen to your team, if you have a problem and only when you beleive you have all the information share the results back on why you made the choice that you made without emotion, if in operations be prepared to except the fact that you need to be able to sell your ideas and solutions back to your colleagues, being right is never enough, you have to be able to get your peers to buy into the idea or ultimately you will fail

1. Admit you are not perfect and make mistakes. Be humble and show humility.
2. Be firm but fair in dealings with all people. Thank them when they have done a job job, and show them how they can improve if they have fallen short of what you expect.
3. Say that you hire people that are smarter than you.

1. Lead with honesty, answer questions with straight answers, be honest when you don’t have those answers
2. Admit the failures, embrace the learnings, hold yourself to the same standards you expect others to live by. You are not the exception to any rule in your organisation.
3. Empower, questions often present opportunities and being able to say back to an employee “here’s where you can run with this” is a fantastic opportunity to help others grow.

1. Be consistent – do what you say you’ll do by when you’ve committed to. Stick to scheduled meetings wherever possible. Be reliable.
2. As a leader, if you don’t have a more senior person you report into or are a founder / entrepreneur, have reviews with your own coach or mentor to ensure you’re developing your leadership skills and get objective about your own performance. I have quarterly reviews with my coach, and give myself KPIs – I hold myself to the same standards in the same system as my team and they can see that. (If not more.)
3. Invest time getting to know each direct report – do they have family – ages of kids / what are their career goals / their strengths / what do they enjoy in the job / hobbies. I find people really respect me taking the time to learn about them. We’ve sent surprise science sets and gardening sets out to children of our coaches during lockdowns and half terms to boost them and it was hugely appreciated. But we needed that knowledge of ages of the kids / when half terms are and even that some were struggling with homeschooling to be able to do something to help.

Have a clear direction of travel and communicate expectations, empower teams to deliver by embedding that mindset into the culture and let them get on with it. Let them know that you know that no projects go to plan. Accept that there is going to be failure, but fail fast and reset. Get them to remember what they have learned and apply it to the next challenge.

Teams are made up of individuals, get to know them, I don’t mean taking each one out for coffee on a 1:1, especially with very large teams, but know the strong and weak links. Measure performance, recognise effort, then reward it, and not only after a successful outcome.

During the course of programmes and projects, keep momentum going and don’t allow failure to disrupt it. Be decisive, get to the heart of an issue and tackle it head on. Its important to maintain a positive energy and outlook, you want to be that go to person if someone has an issue or is struggling.

Be humble. No-one knows everything; accept that sometimes your most junior members of staff can teach you things you didn’t know.
Lead by example. Sometime you just need to get the sleeves rolled up and do the small things that will allow your team to complete their goal. Don’t be that person who swans off to play golf at 3 in the afternoon while the team is struggling to meet deadlines that you’ve probably agreed.
Don’t dwell on mistakes. People make mistakes, everyone does. Don’t dwell on the negatives but deal with things and move on.

Listen to your team, the ones who are actually doing the jobs. What are their challenges, bottlenecks, and opportunities. See what suggestions they have and give them freedom to make improvements. They will feel more valued if you listen and take on board their feedback and experience. If you don’t agree, take the time to explain your reasoning, they will feel more included and part of the business.

– Practice what you preach. If any leader wants respect they must first and foremost respect those who they are asking it from.
– Offer consistency. Consistency in the workplace creates a comfortable and stable atmosphere to work in. This in turn increases productivity.
– Firm but fair. Establish boundaries but remember that we are only human and everyone needs a laugh.

1) Take Full Responsibility when things go wrong: Instead of looking for someone to blame, own your part first.

2) Praise publicly: When a team member does great work, showcase their work to other colleagues publicly.

3) Criticize privately: When someone makes a mistake, don’t embrace them in front of other team members, but take time privately to show them what they did wrong and what they can do instead.

Respect is an essential ingredient in healthy organisations. It also plays a key role in effective thought leadership and external influencing. But when I reflect on how I lead, I rarely do anything with the sole purpose of gaining respect.

Being asked to respond to this question gave me the opportunity to ask staff at Villiers Park Educational Trust, the national social mobility charity I am proud to lead, what I do that means that they respect me. I also reach out to past colleagues at the Office for Students (the HE regulator) as well as some of the key stakeholders I have worked with. Being open and curious to the responses has given me new insights into how I am perceived.

Every person spoke about three things: I genuinely care about organisational purpose; I want everyone to share their ideas and opinions and wisdoms; and then I make clear, imperfect decisions.

I have chosen a career in social justice – or, more to the point, I have been called to it. Those who spend even small amounts of time with me know how driven I am to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to thrive. Achieving this means systemic change alongside interventions at the individual level. Clarity of, and dedication to, purpose gains respect.

I know that we won’t solve the most challenging of problems unless we focus on finding the best solution, which doesn’t have to be (and often isn’t) my solution. I need every member of staff and every stakeholder to share their wealth of experience and their unique understanding of how the world works. People thrive when they are given space to be curious, creative and tenacious, and when their experiences, ideas and opinions are recognised as valuable contributions to achieving positive change. This environment is not something that can be turned on and off. We need to hold these spaces all the time, in all our interactions, not just during workshops! Leaders are respected for holding those spaces.

Human beings are complicated and do unexpected things. We live in complex social structures and have to navigate faulty systems to move forward. Therefore it isn’t possible to make perfect decisions with guaranteed outcomes and no unintended consequences. In that context my role as a leader is to move us forward, in line with our values and towards our purpose. So I make decisions. I explain them and I almost always stick to them. Sometimes I get it wrong, and I’m honest about this and work to make amends. You earn respect by owning your responsibility and your fallibility.

Honestly, I think leadership is all about really showing up, even when it’s hard. And leadership also means making it safe for everyone else to do the same.

Rae Tooth is chief executive of Villiers Park Educational Trust, a national social mobility charity

don’t know, what do you think?” As the boss, you don’t have a monopoly on knowing the answers. Giving your team permission and space to come up with new ideas and ways of doing things is at least as satisfying as doing everything yourself!

Be open, present and ‘interruptavle’ – it’s not just about having an open door it’s about having open conversations whenever they are needed.

Hire people who are different to you. Innovation only happens when prople with different skills, perspectives and outlooks work together.

Be humble – You possibly might honestly be able to say that you have done every job your team members are responsible for. But you don’t do that job day in day out anymore. And the job will have changed a lot since then, anyway
Be brave – Everyone knows that you get the best out of people by freeing them, but empowerment usually feels like a great idea for tomorrow or the day after. Try it today
Pilfer – There are some brilliant insights and tips out there, so make the best of them!

1. Share your stories with your team, show them that your experience theirs if they want to learn from it too.
2. Empathise but remain the leader. In tricky times you need to step up and take charge.
3. Always be honest and share as much of the bigger picture as you can. A fresh pair of eyes can transform any challenge and nothing demotivates like mushroom management!

1) Build a culture that fosters psychological safety – your people will be empowered to use their initiative, show creativity and innovation and push themselves out of their comfort zone, knowing that they won’t be reprimanded or ridiculed for doing so.
2) Demonstrate emotional intelligence – lead with empathy, show self-awareness and communicate effectively to earn trust and respect, even if people don’t always agree with you (and they won’t!)
3) Ask them open questions and listen to them, actively. Show them that you value their ideas and opinions. And remember – waiting to speak is not the same as listening!

Demonstrating a positive can-do attitude, implementing rationale and diplomacy in pressurised circumstances, and then taking affirmative decisions are skills leaders need to embrace if they want to become well-developed leaders and respected by their teams.

Leaders must also understand that their actions reflect who they are. Therefore, influential leaders should act and behave in the same manner they also like to be treated because respect is earned and harnessed much more by the values and behaviours leaders demonstrate daily than by what they do.

Finally, a leader must demonstrate effective communication skills with their teams, especially if decisions impact them. Inviting feedback during and after decision-making processes, promoting collaboration and encouraging diversity of thought are all strategies that significantly improve leadership decision-making. Such collaborative actions also empower teams to build both trust and respect.

Leaders need to think about what they can do for their teams and not what their teams can do for them. Its called servant leadership. Read Simon Sinek, Leaders Eat Last to get a better understanding. So when you as a leader gets up in the morning, think through what your team needs in order to be successful before you think about your own priorities.

1. Recognize their successes
2. Show that they are valued
3. Let them know you have their backs

1. Make every effort to provide a clear understanding of WHY your business is doing what it does. How is it helping people, what problems are you solving and what difference your efforts will make to the world. Your team is on a collective mission, do they understand WHY they are doing this work and can they deliver the mission statement as well as you can?

2. Encourage and develop a free-thinking environment, hold regular sessions for your teams to pass on their thoughts about new products, how to make the current products or service better and share their ideas. Give them a voice.

3. Every member of the team should never fear failing, failings are a critical part of business and individual growth as long as they are understood and a pathway for onward development is present.

1) Lead from the front and by example – never be afraid to roll your sleeves up and get stuck in.
2) Don’t take the credit – always recognise, praise and give all the credit to your team.
3) Hire slow, fire fast – there’s never any need to tolerate poor performance.

1. Demonstrate passion for the organisation’s purpose so it’s clear why you’re doing what you’re doing and ooze your organisational values
2. Be collaborative in your leadership style and don’t be afraid to learn from your colleagues; their insight and foresight can strengthen your work and that of the organisation’s so why would you not want their skills, expertise and wisdom? Being inclusive also energises colleagues, fosters creativity and enhances your work culture so you’re more productive and have fun!
3. Ensure clarity, transparency and accountability; say when you get something wrong and show what you have learned

1. Delegate accordingly and within reason. Often we assume having people at hand to assist means that they can take on any and everything that we haven’t sadly got the capacity for. It is important to delegate any tasks at work fairly and accordingly in order to not burden your team.

2. Be compassionate and show a genuine care for your team’s well being. Checking in on various members of the team throughout the week reaffirms their belief that their position and role in the organisation is valued and that you care or want the best for them at all times.

3. Be passionate about your organisation and always share these thoughts and emotions with your team. The more your team knows about your feelings for the work you are all committed to doing, the more understanding and driven they are about your mission.

I’ve taken three things from Toilet Twinning’s team culture that I think can offer principles for leaders:

1. Dare to fail: Leaders earn respect when they give their teams space to try things, and dream big and learn from any mistakes they make. We don’t want a blame culture, we want a celebration culture. We can celebrate failure as well as success – as long as we have planned well, executed well, and learned well.

2. Open and honest working relationships: This has to be demonstrated by the leader. Leaders must be present in all conversations, actively listening to all ideas and feedback, and communicating really well. If the leader doesn’t listen to their team, they can’t expect their team to listen to them.

3. Celebrate success: Even when you try to give people opportunities to shine and do what they love every day, sometimes people have to do things they don’t like. One way to prevent people feeling underwhelmed, overwhelmed or undervalued is through taking the time to stop, pause, and celebrate. Leaders must celebrate the successes of their team. Everyone has to have their moment to shine.

Leadership is no different than raising kids.

1. Be a role model. Kids don’t do what you ask them to do instead they do what they witness you doing.

2. Always have empathy. Treat your team as you would like to be treated.

3. It’s okay to be vulnerable and share your shortcomings. No one is perfect!

The above three things always helped me to lead.

1) “Seek first to understand, to then be understood” Stephen Covey. Understand your people – what motivates them? What drives them to do what they do? Money, their family? Don’t assume you know! What’s their ‘map of the world’, their belief systems? Only when we truly understand our people will we be able to lead and communicate in a way that they understand so they can see the benefits for them and their work.
2) Be one of the team – Don’t divide yourself from them by living in your office. Lead from the front. Be there ready to support, engage, challenge and have fun. Pull your weight. Everyone needs to be rowing in the same direction for the boat to move forwards.
3) Ensure you invest time in your team and back them. Make they know they are valued and empowered. If they make a bad decision with the right intentions – back them. We are all learning. Where do they want to go next? Where can you take them? However long your employees are with you, make it purposeful for them and the business. Develop them so they can leave, but make them want to stay. Make every interaction count – time is precious.

Lead by example: it’s one rule for everyone, and that absolutely includes leadership! Upholding the boundaries, processes and policies your company has in place is an absolute necessity for earning respect. Company culture always comes from the top, and people will look to you for example and guidance.

Be yourself: to lead effectively, your team needs to trust you. If you adopt a business persona, or try to mimic leadership styles you’ve experienced from others, it will feel false and inauthentic. People want to be led by someone they resonate with, not an archetype. Plus, your authenticity will invite your team to be themselves at work which will improve overall satisfaction levels.

Over-communicate: they say that knowledge is power… so share as much of that power with your team as you can. Then they will have the best chance of understanding top-down decisions and company performance. Sometimes as a leader you have to make difficult decisions – your team will respect those decisions far more if they understand the problem as well as the solution. Context is key.

Remind them that it’s ok to make mistakes, as long as we learn from them. Ask them for their ideas and thoughts before imposing your own. Give them the space they need to find who they are, so they learn to trust themselves and to use their own initiative.

Leaders earn a great deal of respect through being good listeners and demonstrating wisdom

Leaders need to enable their teams to have freedom in their decision making, not to judge or criticise innovative or creative thinking

Leaders should have good manners and self discipline – be a role model to the teams

Listen to understand, give power and authority away and be honest 🙂

Have a clear vision
Show they understand the value and contribution each team makes to this vision
Be prepared to talk personally about their leadership values

1. Always give them a reasoned and thoughtful “Why” we do X.
2. Give them the opportunity to voice their views on what should be done, but be clear that when a decision is to be made, it’s the leader breaking any deadlocks.
3. Walk the fine line between Decisiveness and Open-to-Change.

1) Roll up your sleeves. Nothing inspires confidence and conviction among your team members more than seeing a leader play a role in even the little things. In the early days of a startup, that could be bringing packages to the post office, cleaning the kitchen, or answering the phone. But it shouldn’t stop even after you’ve grown.

2) Be transparent about your mistakes. Making mistakes comes with the job. Any job. Team members need to see leadership own up to mistakes so they can feel comfortable enough when they make their own to fix them and learn from them.

3) Listen to your team. Even the best leaders don’t know everything. And none of them see everything. Your team members are your eyes and ears. And when they know that you hear them, and that you will act on what you hear, they’re more engaged and more committed to the team’s mission.

Treat everyone the same way you wish to be treated.

Never ask them to do something you wouldn’t like doing yourself!

Get your hands “dirty”. When I ask a team member to clean a toilet, I first show them how I clean one myself, step by step.

The three things for me which all leaders should have in their locker

1. Always treat everyone with respect and dignity, no matter what the situation, you never know where they are going to end up, potentially working for your biggest client or being able to influence you in winning or retaining work. Good manners cost nothing.
2. Learn the art of delegation, recognise the things you are both good and not so good at, passing the not so good areas to people you can trust to deliver and who can see and believe in your vision. Always look to recruit people who are better than you, makes your life and workload so much easier.
3. Engage and listen, know your teams by their first name, send them an email on their birthday, say hello every morning, make them a tea or coffee every once in a while. By creating an open environment don’t be afraid to share information good and bad (to a degree), you want your staff on your side backing you up and you will get this if you are honest and upfront, ask for help when you need it and implement some of their ideas however small to show that you listen, they wont necessarily cost you anything in £££’s but you will get much more back.

Be a decent human being, this one quality alone will win the respect of many. Listen, really really listen. Leaders that open their ears fully stand more chance of leading in a style that works with their colleagues. Make the brave decisions. Too many leaders take too long, over analyse or simply sit on the fence.

To earn respect you need to treat everyone fairly and deal with issues quickly. Understanding issues and limits within your team is key to your team trusting and respecting you. Admitting when you have made a mistake or could have done something better allows your team to take risks without fear of the culture is one of no mistakes allowed, allowing you to provide constructive feedback and growth.