My recently released book Road to Respect: Path to Profit, teaches that workplace leaders interested in building a respectful workplace culture must “walk the talk” of respect. Chapter 7, entitled Respectful Leadership, highlights concrete behaviours leaders can adopt to demonstrate respect to those they lead. 

Last month Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston faced a problem confronting far too many leaders these days.  His organization was facing a $20 million shortfall as a result of the struggling economy. He had to take some action to cover that shortfall.

The obvious solution was to cut staff. Six hundred positions were identified for layoff.  However, Mr. Levy had another idea. He wanted everyone to give up a little so that more people could remain employed. He preferred to reduce the salaries and benefits of   all employees rather than laying off some of them.

As CEO he had the power to impose that decision upon everyone, but he chose not to. Instead he called a meeting of all of the Medical Center employees. He told them about the problem their organization was facing and asked for their input in resolving it.  He shared his idea and asked employees for their ideas.
 
But wait a minute here. I mean, aren’t leaders supposed to be “leading” and employees “following”? Aren’t leaders the ones that are supposed to make the decisions and tell others what to do?

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In the past, we’ve posed questions to our readers regarding current events and the respectful behaviors associated with them.

Here’s a sample:

• The Cost of Barack Obama’s Inauguration: A Justified Work Related Expense or Overindulgent?

• Multiple Generations Working Together

• Do We Still Need a Black History Month?

This time we have a question about beliefs.

By now, we’ve all heard about the Miss California incident during the Miss USA pageant last weekend. Carrie Prejean’s response to a question on gay marriage, based on her personal beliefs, has sparked quite a controversy.

What did you think of her belief-based response? Did she answer respectfully?

One of the Rules of Engagement that we promote during our respectful workplace program is ‘to value the many different sources of knowledge that exist’. While we present this as a guideline to consider during the program, I’ve also found it equally useful in my own life.

Recently I was chatting with a close friend who is African-American. She and I have known each other for years and therefore can be candid with one another, especially when it comes to issues of race. During the conversation she told me a story about discrimination. It wasn’t a story about discrimination that had happened to her but rather told to her by a good friend, who is white. She told my friend that where she grew up in the Upper Midwest her family had been discriminated against in their town, because they were from a different Eastern European ethnic minority than their neighbors. My friend, an intelligent college-educated woman in her mid-30s, couldn’t understand this story.

Why?

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Earlier this week the New York Times reported on a new program that teaches empathy to middle school students as a way to prevent violence and bullying. Imagine the possibilities if everyone practiced just a little more empathy in their lives and at work.

Gossip Girls and Boys Get Lessons in Empathy
By Winnie Hu

SCARSDALE, N.Y. — The privileged teenagers at Scarsdale Middle School are learning to be nicer this year, whether they like it or not.

English classes discuss whether Friar Laurence was empathetic to Romeo and Juliet. Research projects involve interviews with octogenarians and a survey of local wheelchair ramps to help students identify with the elderly and the disabled. A new club invites students to share snacks and board games after school with four autistic classmates who are in separate classes during the day.

And to combat feelings of exclusion, the Parent Teacher Association is trying to curtail a longstanding tradition of seventh graders and eighth graders showing up en masse Monday morning wearing the personalized sweatshirts handed out to the popular crowd at the weekend’s bar or bat mitzvahs.

The emphasis on empathy here and in schools nationwide is the latest front in a decade-long campaign against bullying and violence. Many urban districts have found empathy workshops and curriculums help curb fighting and other misbehavior. In Scarsdale, a wealthy, high-performing district with few discipline problems to start with, educators see the lessons as grooming children to be better citizens and leaders by making them think twice before engaging in the name-calling, gossip and other forms of social humiliation that usually go unpunished.

(Read the Entire Article)

Erica Pinsky, our latest guest blogger, is an expert at helping organizations create respectful and profitable workplaces. Erica has extensive work experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors.  Her Canadian clients include: Washington Marine Group, City of Vancouver, Bell Mobility, Canfor and the BC Teachers Federation.

Fostering Respectful Dialogue

When US Attorney General Eric Holder described Americans as “a nation of cowards” with respect to discussing racial issues. His comments received a lot of attention.

I am not an American. I am a Canadian and I have been working in Canada promoting respectful practices at work for over 10 years. I have worked with hundreds of employees in a myriad of different workplaces. As a result, I know that Attorney General Holder’s comments could be applied to Canadians. However, while I completely agree with the meaning behind his message, I am concerned about the way Mr. Holder expressed it.

My new book, Road to Respect: Path to Profit, is a “how to” guide for building respectful and profitable workplaces. A key component of a respectful workplace is the willingness to face up to, and talk openly about, how issues like racism, sexism, equality and power affect workplace relationships and the workplace community. This topic is so important that I have devoted an entire chapter to it.

Most people simply don’t want to talk about these uncomfortable issues, particularly with others who seem “different”. There are many reasons that contribute to this reluctance, but fear is the most prevalent. People don’t want to say the wrong thing, and don’t want to “offend”. Racism, sexism, equality and power are issues that people have very strong feelings about and many don’t want to risk getting into an argument. As a result, they often choose the path of avoidance.

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