Dear Sasha: I don’t have respect from my juniors or seniors!

“I am a middle/senior level manager in a multinational company. I have done well so far in my career and I do feel that I am good at my work.

Increasingly I get the feeling that I don’t have much respect from my leaders or subordinates. What can I do in this situation?”

Dear Friend,

First of all, congratulations on the great job that you are doing so well. But no matter how well we do, there is always room for improvement.

The mistake we often make while climbing up the ladder is that we feel we are great at doing something, so we should get promoted. But the fact is the higher we climb up the corporate ladder, we do less technical work and more people management or relationship work. And unfortunately no one trains us before asking us to manage people.

I would recommend that you take a leadership course/coaching that would help you understand how to delegate, negotiate, empathy, conflict management, handling difficult conversations, and so on.

But in the meantime, here are a few quick tips:

1. Relationships are a two way street. Treat others how you would like to be treated.
2. Every relationship is a partnership. No one is senior or junior. You are giving and getting something from the relationship.
3. Try to listen and understand before getting into any kind of a discussion/argument.
4. Make people want to cooperate with you rather than giving orders and moving on to the next task.
5. When people share a common purpose, they move forward together as a team. So rather than giving people micro tasks, share a vision of what you are trying to achieve.
6. Your manager also needs management. So make sure, his goals are met through your work and he knows that.

Hope this helps.

Much love

Sasha