Teamwork makes the dream work.
If you're a team leader, you understand the importance of building
cohesive inspired teams where you lead effectively and everyone in
your team member knows where they are going and knows how to get
there.
And they are self-motivated.
And sometimes as a team leader, we run into issues where, how come
there are certain team members who aren't quite self-motivated?
How come there are some team members who don't quite respect your
leadership?
So in this video, what I wanna share with you are five key principles
on how you can gain the respect of your team members as a team leader.
And these principles I'm gonna share with you as the ABCs.
So go through down the alphabet, a, B, C, D, E.
All right, let's go.
Letter A stands for appreciate who they are.
As a team leader, understand that every member of your team are unique
individuals.
They come with different levels of experience, they come with a
different background, they come with different expertise and skill
sets that they've gained in their past.
And so as a team leader, it would be important for you to understand
who are they, what keeps them awake at night?
What motivates them?
What is important to them?
And are there any particular areas where they have confidence?
And are there any particular areas where they are aware of their skill
sets and they have an understanding of what they bring to the table.
So understand who they are on one hand, who they say they are, and on
the other hand, who is it that they exude?
And they may not be aware of who they come across as and how they
exude themselves, but it would be an important for you to understand
who are they and show that appreciation.
Appreciation for who they are is what every individual seeks.
Every member of your team, they join a team to be part of something,
they join a team to be part of something inspiring and to make a
meaningful contribution.
And they wanna make it at their fullest potentials.
And they wanna make it authentically from who they are.
So when you come at it and you appreciate who they are, it comes from
a level of understanding them and understanding their perspectives as
well.
And so the first step as being respected as a leader is to appreciate
who they are as individuals.
So we just finished talking about letter A, appreciate them for who
they are, which means that you respect them enough to find out what is
important to them.
So let's talk about letter B.
Letter B is a balance of praise and reprimand.
B stands for balance.
So what do I mean by that?
When it comes to being a team leader, it is important to understand
that respect equals praise plus reprimand is not one without the other
is not praise without reprimand and is definitely not reprimand
without praise.
'cause oftentimes when we are having team members and we are leading
the teams towards visions and towards goals, we think about giving
feedback, but at the same time we think about, well, I need to say,
have something good to say, I need to praise them.
And maybe they respect me more when I praise them.
And there's this fear in the back of our head that, well, if I need to
reprimand, if I do need to take corrective action or help them make
corrective action that they don't respect that as much.
Well, respect is the balance of both.
It is the equal balance of praise and respect.
Because if you give only praise, then your team members, especially
those A players, they want to improve.
They wanna know if their contributions are being valued.
They wanna know how can I make a more meaningful contribution?
They wanna know what it is that I can improve on.
These are the A players in your team.
So if all you give is praise, there's a lack of feedback.
And then they come at it and at the back of their mind they're
wondering, okay, so if there's all praise and there's all praise, that
means that I'm gonna expect a promotion soon.
And if you're giving praise for the sake of praise and building
respect, then it's not a really fair exchange because they didn't get
the feedback that they needed in order to grow.
Like think about it.
Have you ever been in a situation where you were up for promotion and
you really wanted to be promoted and you went to have this
conversation with your, your manager and somehow they didn't give you
the promotion, but it was puzzling to you because for the longest
time, all you received was good things, positive reviews, praise
without reprimand.
And now what happens is that when it's time for promotion and the
didn't make promises they didn't make up on the promises of promotion,
it's confusing and it's also leads to a mistrusted leadership.
So that's what happens when you have praise without reprimand.
Now let's look at the opposite.
Reprimand without praise, reprimand without praise is now yes, you're
making, you're helping them make corrective action and you're giving
them feedback on areas of improvement.
But if all it is is areas of improvement, then not as well.
That also, um, too much of that can also lead to mistrust and distrust
of the team leader as well.
Because at the back of their mind they're wondering, well, how is it
that I'm not doing anything right?
And they want to trust their leadership.
They trust their own skillset, bring it into it, and they trust the
fact that they've had successes in the past.
Well, how is it that I'm joining this team and all I'm receiving is
corrective action and reprimand, right?
So when you have a balance of both praise and reprimand, this is what
creates fair exchange.
It's fair exchange, which means it's a win-win situation.
It's a win for you because now you can help them make corrective
action.
You can help them become productive members of your team as well.
And you can exude your leadership.
It's a win for them as well because they understand specifically areas
in which they can improve.
And at the same time, they can identify things that they've done well.
So praise plus represent reprimand is what equals respect, and it also
creates a fair exchange.
So we have letter A, which is appreciate them for who they are.
Letter B, which is a balance of praise and reprimand.
And now letter C.
Letter C stands for communicate in their values.
Every member you have on your team, they come at it where they come
with a very unique set of values, a very unique set of values, and no
two people have the same set of values.
And by the way, no member of your team will have the same set of
values as you do.
So as a team leader, one of your most important abilities is to
understand what are their values and what's the thing that, what is
the thing that is most important to them?
So when they join your team, when they, when you want to build team
members that are in, that are intrinsically motivated, one of the
things that it motivates an individual is understanding precisely how
being a part of this team and and participating in these projects and
how fulfilling on my responsibilities when they can understand how
these activities and their role is going to help them fulfill what is
most important to them in their highest values.
So when you are leading and you communicate in their values, this is
where they understand and they can appreciate how this rule is gonna
serve them.
They can appreciate how this rule is gonna give them confidence, and
more importantly, they can appreciate how they are making a meaningful
contribution the way that they define it.
So communication in their values is where and is one of the most
important skill sets if you are a team leader because it also leads to
diplomatic relations.
It also helps you to understand how do I manage and navigate these
differences in individuals in a very prudent manner?
Because every team member is gonna come from different cultural
background, they're gonna have differences in opinions, they're gonna
have different ways of doing things, different ways of solving
problems, and how do you navigate through all these differences?
So this is where communication through their values and communicating
in their values is gonna be effective for you at creating that
unification.
Now, if you're listening to this and you realize that this is the
missing piece, communicating in values, understanding what's important
to them, and balancing praise and reprimand, if you're nodding your
head and you're realizing this is important to you, then I invite you
to really work on these parts.
I'm gonna share with you two more principles on gaining the respect on
your team members, but I wanna pause you and give you an opportunity
to work with me every single week, I provide training for team leaders
on how to lead their teams effectively, how to communicate effectively
as well, and how to navigate relationships diplomatically, build
meaningful relationships with you and your team members.
And if you are serious about developing that interpersonal and
interpersonal skillset for yourself, then below this video in the
description is a link for you to apply to book a call to speak to
either myself or a member of my team.
And this is where we're gonna share with you how we can help you
specifically.
So the link is below.
I look forward to working with you on the inside.
So far we've discussed the ABCs.
A was to appreciate them for who they are.
B was to balance praise and reprimand.
C was to communicate in their values, which leads to letter D and D is
to demonstrate transparency.
So transparency, you hear that a lot in the corporate world in terms
of being transparent with each other.
So let's talk about that a little bit.
When it comes to transparency, transparency does come with it a little
bit of vulnerability.
And when I say vulnerability, I'm not talking about airing your dirty
laundry, I'm not talking about bringing too much information on the
personal front.
I simply mean transparently sharing with your team members what's
going on with you as a team leader so that they don't have to guess.
Let me illustrate this with an example.
Let's say you had a difficult morning, right, with the kids, with your
significant other, a little bit of a difficult morning, which is
typical.
Sometimes we have, we have discussions and have arguments with their
family members.
But somehow you show to work, show up to work in that morning in a
huff and a little bit off now, and you try your best to be present.
You try your best to be strong and to forget about what happened in
the morning.
But what's gonna happen is that when you show up for your meetings and
when you show up in front of your team members, they're gonna notice
that something is a little bit off with you.
They're gonna notice that there's something different this morning, or
maybe you don't even realize this, but perhaps you are a little bit
short with your team members.
Perhaps you are on a tight fuse.
Perhaps there is a little bit of impatience, more than usual.
And they detect these things.
Humans, individuals have sensory acuity.
They can pick up on these things.
They're energies, they can pick up on it.
They are body language, they can pick up on it.
And if they don't know what happened, nine times out of 10, they're
gonna assume that it was their fault.
Nine times out of 10, they're going to assume that it is something
they did wrong and they're going assume that there's going to be an
outburst or some sort of reprimand coming down and they're gonna be
afraid of retribution.
And so all that takes is just transparency to just to be able to
prevent any of these from happening.
All it takes is a a little bit of transparency.
And transparency simply could look like showing up the morning and
saying, Hey, by the way, I'm excited to start this day with you, but
this morning I had a little kerfuffle with the kids.
So if I'm a little bit off, if I'm a little bit short with you, that's
just what happened.
So please bear it with me.
Something like that.
As simple as that can be transparency.
It's just simply as a leader, sharing with your team what's going on
with you so they don't have to guess.
And when they don't have to guess, they don't make assumptions.
Because we are individuals and we try to make sense out of situations,
we try to put pieces together When there are gaps in our knowledge, we
try to fill them in so that we can understand how to behave and how to
move forward and how to navigate through that.
So transparency, just a little bit of transparency goes a long way.
Now, I understand there's a lot of resistance when it comes to
providing transparency in the workplace.
'cause one of the things we hear really often is keep your work life
separate from your personal life.
We hear that a lot.
But the problem with that is if you keep your personal life completely
separate from you, from your professional life, there are some
individuals who do value that human connection and they might feel
that is missing.
And on the other hand, there are some times where just some
explanation of what's going on in your personal life.
I don't mean airing out your dirty laundry, but just a little bit of
transparency can go a long ways in helping your team members
understand you in the moment.
So this is letter D is to demonstrate transparency.
So let's summarize what we've covered so far.
A is to appreciate them for who they are.
B was the balance between praise and reprimand.
C was to communicate in their values.
D was to demonstrate transparency, which leads us to the last
principle letter E, which stands for exude equity and equality where
important.
Equity and equality are often conformed, are often used together.
They're often used interchangeably in society.
However, I make a clear a key distinction between both.
Let's talk about this a little bit.
Equality means treating people the same way.
For example, giving them the same access to resources.
If somebody uses HA has, has uses this type of technology, you give
people the same type type of technology.
If people have certain amount of hours on vacation, you treat everyone
the same and you give them the same access to things the same.
You treat them the exact same way.
And that is equality.
Equity is a little bit important, is a little bit different.
Equity comes from the mindset of, I understand that each individual is
different.
I understand that each individual has their differences in values,
their differences in skill sets and capacities.
And because I see them, and I wanna treat them all equally, I want
them to succeed in ways they've defined it.
And they might define success differently.
So equity means I'm going to help set them up for success however they
define it, which means that I see them eye to eye.
Each individual, I see them eye to eye, and I, I'm gonna treat them as
individuals, but I'm gonna treat them with that most respect.
But in so doing, each individual might have a different definition of
success and might have a different understanding of what their goals
and their life purpose is.
So accordance in accordance to that, I'm gonna exude equity.
So there's a little bit of a difference.
And this is where as a team leader, it's important to have
discrepancy, to know when and where to exude equity and equality,
where appropriate, right?
Equity in order to have true equity.
This is where it's important for you to understand true equity is
produced, starting from you, having your own intrapersonal skill sets.
Your intrapersonal skills are the skills that you use to manage
yourself and how you see yourself in relation to other people.
And that self-awareness and that self-esteem and that self-confidence
as a leader.
And that identity as a leader is what helps produce equity between
relationships.
Equality is simply just treating everyone as equals and treating
everyone the same way.
But equity requires a little bit more self-governance.
It requires a little bit more maturity and intrapersonal skillset.
So those are the five key keys when it comes to how do we gain our
respect from our team members as a team leader.
And if you are listening to this and you're thinking, I do wanna step
up my leadership, I really do value my team members.
And I do wanna make a most manu a meaningful contribution in my
industry through my team members.
And if you're thinking about this and you're wondering, well, if I
have team members and I have a team that is reporting directly to me,
how do I make sure that they are inspired?
How do I inspire each of my team members?
Well, I've created some content that talks exactly about that, how to
inspire your team members.
And that ev, that video is coming right up next.
I'll see you there.