How to Communicate With Respect

Are you talking to people with respect? Because if you don’t, your martial arts school may be seen as unfair and indecent. Why is it important to treat other people with respect? Well, there are a lot of reasons. First, business wise, customers and students expect to be treated with respect, without them, you won’t be able to run your school. Secondly, your employees will treat you as you treat them. They may not show it when you’re around, but when you treat them like garbage, they also produce garbage work.

One of the easiest and most obvious ways of showing respect to people is communicating with genuine concern and interest. In today’s article, I’ll show you some pointers on how to communicate with respect.

Be on the Same Level

Do you know the proper way of talking to kids? It’s by kneeling or staying on their eye level. This is one way of presenting yourself as a friendly person. In the office workplace, do your best to maintain an arrangement where you are on the same eye level with your employees. Sitting down with your staff member is the best way to accomplish this. It’s a way of saying that even though you are the boss, you treat your team members as equals.

Practice Respectful Behavior

Just do things that are considered respectful like avoiding insults, showing genuine concern on what a person is talking about, and avoiding gossip. Although gossip facilitates bonding to the people who are gossiping, it will only end up in destroyed office related relationships. The best way to deal gossip is with what I call “anti-gossip”. If you hear people gossiping about another person, counter it with praise or something positive.

Be Clear and Vanquish Fear

What I hate the most is unclear instructions. The biggest problem here is, different people have various distinctions of what is clear or not. A manager can be clear to a well trained person, but to people who lack experience, they will be extremely lost. Other bosses can be so vague, and leave it to their employee to figure things out. Although it’s an effective teaching tool, this must be done with an understanding that there must be room for errors. To prevent errors, just explain what you want done, and everybody will be happy. Another problem with being unclear is that employees are actually afraid to ask for more details. Even if you ask “do you have any questions?”, the employee won’t have the courage to ask. So be clear as possible and give additional details.

Let’s not forget the golden rule. “One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.” Treat people with respect and you will be respected as well.