You can afford to have people dislike you, but when they have no respect for you, that handicap is nearly insurmountable. The only devices left to you are force and induced fear, which are the tools of dictatorship, not leadership. When you have earned respect, subordinates, associates and superiors will seek you out. They will want your suggestions. Selling them on your methods or the needs for a certain action will be relatively easy.
Respect will come to you if you are accurate, you keep your promises, you are fair, you are firm, you are faithful to your principles, and you are impersonal.
You disappoint and aggravate those above and below you every time you fail to keep a promise. Don't fall into the trap of promising something just to please or to "get someone off your back." Be certain you can deliver on the date or hour that you promise to deliver. Keep an accurate record of the re quests so that you remember to act on time and faithfully.
Related to all of these aspects of earning respect is the need for maintaining an impersonal relationship with those around you. You can be a friend and still be impersonal about matters of business. Instead of losing friends from this approach, you will more likely keep them because you will be dealing with the facts objectively and fairly.
If you have gained the respect of those around you, you have mastered the most important part of the art of leadership. Because this is true you may feel you shouldn't have to order or even persuade. You may think that instructions should be enough. But they aren't, especially in matters that are not routine. When you persuade you do not yield authority; you only show what is right. You are giving your staff what they are entitled-the right of understanding the reasons. As a final device you can fall back on the unexplained order, but only when absolutely necessary.
To persuade, use varied appeals. Appeal to a man's pride, to the challenge of the task, to his sense of competition, to his understanding of the facts, to his sense of profit and, since everyone thinks himself to be reasonable, especially to his reason. Take him into your confidence. Make him feel he is an integral part of the operation.
If none of this works, you as boss are free to give an unexplained order and expect results. But before you do, stop and think a moment. Since you have surrounded yourself with able men, it may just possibly be that there is something wrong with what you are asking.
Experts on Leading and Persuading
In business, as most of it is constituted today, a man becomes valuable only as he recognizes the relation of his work to that of all his associates. One worker more or less makes little difference to most big organizations, and any man may be replaced. It is the cumulative effort that counts. W. Alton Jones
The basic requirement of executive capacity is the ability to create a harmonious whole out of what the academic world calls dissimilar disciplines. Crawford H. Greenewalt
Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people. John D, Rockefeller
A good man likes a hard boss. I don't mean a nagging boss or a grouchy boss. I mean a boss who insists on things being done right and on time; a boss who is watching things closely enough so that he knows a good job from a poor one. Nothing is more discouraging to a good man than a boss who is not on the job, and who does not know whether things are going well or badly. William Feather
The man who gets the most satisfactory results is not always the man with the most brilliant single mind, but rather the man who can best coordinate the brains and talents of his associates. W. Alton Jones
As soon as a man climbs up to a high position, he must train his subordinates and trust them. Herbert N. Casson
We have to be Billy Sundays. The problem is to get people enthusiastic, to get people to work however many hours it requires to accomplish something. Bruce Barton
The man who moves ahead-and stays ahead-is the man who has the talent to get others to see things his way, to convince others that they should take action along the lines he recommends. Mortimer Feinberg
Find out what in life means most to your people. One employee yearns to travel, another wants an important title. A third longs for security. Analyze each person's unique goal. Then prove to him how, by working to achieve his company-assigned goals, he will be reaching his personal goal at the same time. Paul J. Meyer
You cannot handle men as the drover would cattle. You drive cattle. You lead people. A man is an individual, an entity, a human. Unlike cattle, he can think and reason, which makes it all the more difficult to control him by force. Driving him, cracking the whip, ignores his dignity as a human being, insults his ability, causes him to rebel-either now or later. E. D. Cummings
In handling men, there are three feelings that a man must not possess-fear, dislike and contempt. If he is afraid of men he cannot handle them. Neither can he influence them in his favor if he dislikes or scorns them. He must neither cringe nor sneer. He must have both self-respect and respect for others. Herbert N. Casson
One cannot delegate what one does not understand. Peter F. Drucker
Appreciation makes people feel more important than most anything else you can give them. Elmer Wheeler
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. Emerson
Ideas to Remember
- Learn to understand people.
- Don't treat everyone in the same way.
- Recognize differences in personality.
- Find out people's interests.
- Understand the varying abilities of people.
- You will get what you expect.
- Seek out people who will be competitive.
- Surround yourself with a strong staff that has something to offer.
- Use the staff.
- Earn the respect of others by being accurate, keeping your promises, being fair, being firm, being faithful to principles and being impersonal.
- Learn to persuade effectively by using varied appeals.
