How to Earn Respect as a Leader

"Respect, trust and credibility are the intangible elements that can make or break a career. So earning respect and developing credibility and trust are critical to your success in business.  An effective leader does not have to command respect, but your actions will help you earn it."

• Create a vision. And provide the key resources to make it happen.

• Communicate that vision. Talk about it confidently and consistently at every opportunity.

• Be passionate. Your enthusiasm will encourage people to accept your ideas and pursue your goals. You can't light a fire under someone if you are a wet match.

• Walk the talk. Be visible. Stay involved. Team members want a leader who is in the trenches with them. And, if you say that you'll do something, they want to know they can count on your word. If you want others to be accountable, you must be accountable.

• Create a congenial, supportive atmosphere. Be a good listener. Be patient. Be open. Your team wants to feel it can express itself freely. Trust builds trust.

• Show that you value the work of every team member. You will have people with different levels of skills and different responsibilities. Acknowledge that each contributes to the team's success.

• Be open to disagreement. Team members should feel they can express their ideas and beliefs freely without any negative consequences.

• Know your strengths and weaknesses. Understand how you appear to others-in particular, recognize your own unhelpful "hot buttons" and work on eliminating them. Be able to speak about your shortcomings with honesty and directness.

• Accept responsibility for your actions and those of your team. Demonstrate courage. Admit shortcomings. Team members want a leader with the courage to admit if they let the team down. Put aside your own well-being and self-interest.

PASS

• Integrity.  In the best display of integrity in this series, Kevin (Mosaic) openly scolded Apex for making Stacie J. the scapegoat the previous week. Instead of going along with the majority opinion of the group, Kevin courageously stood up for his own convictions and principles. He shows great leadership promise.
   

• Protecting and allocating your team resources.  High performing teams strategically allocate team resources by matching individual talents and skills with the requirements of the task. Mosaic put artistic John in charge of creating art for the walls. The result: The men got higher decor ratings. Mosaic, wisely, hired a cleaning crew. The result: Their team was refreshed, fun and energetic with customers, resulting in higher service ratings. This, however, counts as a penalty flag for the women. They used their limited, valuable team resources to scrub floors until 4 a.m. the day of the opening. Do you think Trump cleans his own bathroom? The result: an exhausted, irritated team that hovered over customers like nervous vultures. One Zagat diner response, "They were like seven uptight stewardesses."  Working hard and working smart are two very different things.

  FAIL

• Respect.  Trump's lesson for the episode: "Be respected." The antithesis was Jennifer C. whom Trump justifiably fired. You don't earn respect by backstabbing, eavesdropping, barking orders or making comments to your team such as, "you are contaminating our living quarters just by being here." Respect is earned via qualities such as integrity, character, trust, competence, generosity, emotional intelligence and self-discipline. Sadly, the "best and the brightest" women of Apex simply do not display these traits.
   

• What is the plan?  High performing teams take the time to develop strong strategic plans, no matter how short their task time frames. This plan should include critical path tasks that need to be completed with clear delegation of who is responsible for which tasks by when. A leader should use a visual timeline so that every member of the team knows whether they are on schedule for project completion. When will we see this on "The Apprentice"?
   

• Teams need collaboration to succeed!  To be successful, a team must be able to operate as a cohesive unit. The women of Apex began their task as an angry, dysfunctional team and continued their downward spiral. Apex needed to invest time, energy and focus on mending what was broken and try to build a team that could work effectively together. Instead, team members were continually expending energy watching their own backs rather than focusing on getting the job done as a team. An effective leader cannot afford to overlook conflict and must resolve issues impacting the team's performance.
   

• Emotional self-control: Don't let them see you cry!  The Apex team was embarrassing to businesswomen everywhere by their overly emotional displays of tears, catfights, backbiting and whining. Like the baseball coach in the movie, "A League of Their Own," who said, "There's no crying in baseball," my coaching advice to businesswomen: "There's no crying in the boardroom!"  Personal authority, which is at the heart of leadership, is lost in the workplace when leaders (men or women) lose control of their emotions.  According to "Primal Leadership," a book by Daniel Goleman, the best leaders are those who are comfortable with emotion. He defines emotional intelligence as one's capacity to deal effectively with your own and others' emotions. How do you resolve the personal problem to get to the core team problem? Therapy and coaching to develop emotional intelligence, and, in the case of the women of 'The Apprentice,' lots of it!"
   

• Continual interrupters make poor leaders.  Jennifer C. wins the award for the greatest interrupter and no surprise, got no respect. She interrupted everyone: her team members, customers, Trump and his lieutenants, Carolyn and last year's winner Bill Rancic. What Jennifer C. missed, when she interrupted Carolyn, was possible advice that might have helped her in the boardroom. Jennifer C. could benefit hugely from valuable feedback from wise mentors about her leadership style and impact on others. Unfortunately, she was too busy interrupting to hear it.
   

• Stereotyping in the workplace -- a major no-no.  Jennifer C. displayed her stereotypical fangs with comments about customers such as, like, "the pinnacle of two fat, New York Jewish old bags." And Chris on the Mosaic team described a table of four male customers as "four gay guys on their way to the theater -- they're going to be critical." There is zero tolerance in today's workplace for stereotypical comments. Lawsuits aside, making comments about customers' or employees' gender, race, religion or sexual preference is just plain wrong.

MAUREEN MORIARTY
SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER