PERSONAL INTEGRITY MEANS DOING what you say you’re going to do, and that your actions will consistently reflect your principles, publicly and privately. While personal integrity is the foundation for a culture of organizational trust, leaders must also be looking to spread trust across an organization. How? By practicing the art of respect—for everybody, in ways large and small.
Respect is the currency of trust, the way it’s exchanged among people. Like any attitude or behavior, respect requires focus, awareness, and practice. The trust that grows out of respect depends more on the value placed on individuals than on management techniques or policy statements. And it is reflected in simple, daily interactions.
Nothing shows greater respect for others than to listen to them without agenda. That means listening not to agree or disagree (or to stall as you prepare a response), but simply to understand. The late author and thought leader Stephen R. Covey, one of the most effective leaders I’ve worked with, suggested you should always try to “capture” another person’s point of view, especially in a potential disagreement. Covey would begin, “If I understand what you’re saying,” and then describe the opposing viewpoint to that person’s satisfaction. Powerfully demonstrating respect, he could often state the other position better than the other person had. From this model, I’ve learned to ask people, “What alternatives did you consider when coming up with your recommendation?” Listening carefully, I’ve learned to withhold judgment until I’ve understood how they thought about a problem, not just how they decided to solve it. Many have told me that this is a sign of respect, and one that forces them to prepare carefully.
Leaders further demonstrate and encourage respect when they empower team members, celebrate their contributions, and help them learn from missteps. In his book Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread, Professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a computer scientist who directs the school’s Human Dynamics Laboratory, wrote:
“It is not simply the brightest who have the best ideas—it is those who are best at harvesting them from others. It is not only the most determined who drive change—it is those who most fully engage with like-minded people. And it is not wealth or prestige that best motivates people—it is respect and help from peers.”
Showing respect in an organization doesn’t center only on those in the executive suite. You’ll know you’ve got a high-trust organization when you find leaders showing respect to people at every level, especially those from whom they stand to gain the least. Watch chairman and CEO Marc Benioff walk around the vast offices of Salesforce and you’ll see that he’s engaged with his people. He knows details—not just about board members and major shareholders, but also about receptionists and drivers in different cities.
Trusted leaders show respect by seeking feedback from individuals outside their inner circles. They remember names of colleagues and even the names of their colleagues’ children and friends—not to score points, but because they care. Sincerity matters. There are many traditional ways to show respect to colleagues, such as recalling birthdays or anniversaries. But here’s another thought: Make the boilerplate “How are you doing?” mean something. Most recipients of that throwaway question have been trained to believe you don’t really care how they’re doing. So try to develop such follow-up responses as, “I’ve noticed that you’ve been away/under pressure/quieter than usual.” Likewise, instead of asking, “Is there anything I can do?”—which will seldom elicit a request for help—query, “Could I take something off your plate?” or, “Would taking a day off help?”
At Google headquarters, leaders foster interaction up and down the ranks, a form of encouraging cross-team respect. In its various on-campus cafeterias, though the food may be gourmet, the tables are decidedly high school: long and narrow, with too little space behind the chairs. It’s intentional. That way, you’ll be forced to bump into somebody when you sit down or get up—and thereby interact with a colleague, perhaps a new one. Consultants call such workplace design serendipitous interaction; at Google, employees call it “the Google Bump.”
At HP, back in the day, management let engineers take equipment home to tinker with; they didn’t need to ask permission or fill out forms in triplicate. Management showed respect by trusting them to return the equipment, which in turn cemented a stronger bond of trust at HP. This is an example of what Stanford professor Rod Kramer calls “measured trust”—“small” and “imaginative” acts that “foster reciprocity.” Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Kramer noted that such policies “sent a strong signal that the company trusted employees, yet involved relatively little risk, because the policy was tied to employees’ not abusing the trust.”
Just as you can’t fake character or integrity, you can’t feign respect. Too many leaders, be they a state senator, a neighborhood shopkeeper, or a bank manager, trip up by simply failing to be respectful.
A textbook example of what respect doesn’t look like happened at Hewlett-Packard in 2007, when the company acknowledged it had spied on its own board in an attempt to discover which directors were leaking information to the press. Private detectives, with apparent knowledge of company officials, impersonated directors and journalists in calls to phone companies to gain access to phone records. This utterly trust-killing activity introduced a sinister cloak-and-dagger term into the lexicon of the digital age: pretexting. More fittingly, it might just have been called lying. Once an icon of Silicon Valley rectitude—the “HP Way” had been thought of as a manual on running a business—the company was ridiculed for a clumsy, disrespectful breach of trust. Even today, in part because of this violation of respect, many see HP as a weakened brand with a bruised reputation.
Respect must also exist beyond an organization’s boundaries. It manifests itself (or doesn’t) in dealings with suppliers, competitors, and even critics. Indeed, the absence of respect in these contexts may be the most telling; if interactions outside the office reflect genuine interest, employees inside may come to trust that they will not be considered trivial.
Here are four ideas for creating an atmosphere of respect, in which trust can thrive:
1. Respect is a high-yield investment. Nothing yields greater dividends in team coherence, employee satisfaction, and organizational momentum than advancing the best interests of the people you work with. Leaders know that as an organization’s reputation for respecting everyone becomes ingrained, so do trust levels. More trust means less politics and fewer personal agendas—and without those drags on trust, people are more productive, more satisfied, and more likely to come up with new ideas.
Many years ago, my Trammell Crow partners recognized that I had long been putting in too many hours on the road. So they bought a weeklong resort vacation for my wife and me. Knowing I’d never accept their condition that I not contact the office for an entire week—or even accept the all-expense-paid vacation—they made all the arrangements with my assistant, bought the tickets, and canceled my appointments. While I wasn’t sure about accepting their expression of thanks at the time, I’ve since thought back on their kindness as a highly meaningful expression of respect. Their investment paid off, as I came back more committed than ever.
2. Positive always beats negative. Honoring those who aren’t present is an ideal way to show respect for those who are. Steer clear of trash-talking even the competition. If leaders engage in people-bashing, even those who happen to be spared the attack will have legitimate reason to mistrust. Your culture will be better served by celebrating what your own team is doing than by tearing down foes.
Equally important to remember is that even the most distressing situations, such as firing people, can be done in a respectful way, reflecting a process of helping those who will do better elsewhere to get on with things in a dignified manner.
3. Showing respect isn’t the same as being nice. Showing respect means more than being deferential. Indeed, disagreement is often key to great decision-making. Out of respectful debate and dissent can grow the best strategy and product, as long as everyone agrees after a decision has been made that they’re all rowing together. Nobody thought of Steve Jobs as nice, yet most of his colleagues most of the time recognized that he respected good ideas and the people who advanced them.
Don’t confuse being a pleaser with showing respect. Being genial, pleasant, and helpful can contribute to respectful interactions. But real respect is demonstrated by empowering others, giving them feedback, making time for their concerns, and expecting them to give their best. People will quickly figure out if your show of respect is superficial. When I first started teaching at Stanford, Associate Dean Mark Wolfson asked for my analysis of a faculty housing matter. I worked over the weekend to research the issues and prepare a memo. I considered this a profound expression of respect from this highly accomplished scholar.
4. Tolerating disrespect allows it to spread. Just as respect can be catching, disrespect can become a contagion. Every baseball manager knows that out of disrespect in the dugout grows team conflict that corrodes the quality of play on the field. The Boston Red Sox of 2011 were infamous for pitchers who partied in the clubhouse while the rest of the team was playing. The revelers drank beer and played video games as the team collapsed in the last month of the season. Tolerating such practices can result in the loss of key team members and organizational stability, leaving a business limping for years. Vigilant leaders always look to nip disrespectful practices in the bud. That means no tolerance for backbiting, letting problems fester, or failing to give individuals the feedback they need to improve.
Worse than tolerating disrespect is when leaders initiate disrespectful attitudes about race, gender, age, or ethnicity. But most insidious are the expressions of disrespect that come from failing to post jobs, to interview internal candidates, or to give people warnings and training.
A VIBRANT ATMOSPHERE OF trust is one in which colleagues are constantly showing respect to, and earning respect from, one another. Respect starts with the example set by an organization’s leaders. In a trust-driven culture, respect is prized at every level. If building a culture of respect sounds difficult to achieve, that’s because it is. But it is a long-term commitment that will pay off, strengthening bonds among teammates and among all with whom they do business.