Positive Effects for Expressing Respects for Others Ideas at Workplace - Essay Example

? Effects for expressing Respects for others’ Ideas at workplace: Asocial Intelligence Approach Introduction The world has been under persistent transformation. Indeed, such transformations have been felt across most sectors, regardless of whether social, economic or political. Even so, the interrelatedness of the political, economic and social environments has made it possible for the transformations to appear conspicuous. It is due to these factors that human behaviors and the related perceptions have changed, thanks to globalization. In the long run, most organizations such as the business oriented ones have looked forward to adjustments that enable them to keep abreast and meet expectations. Organizations are currently going extra miles to look to various techniques that are suited to functioning effectively. It is for this reason that current organizations are giving considerations to social intelligence. It has now been accepted beyond reproach that human behaviors can have far reaching impacts on the effectiveness of Organizations. One of the aspects of human behavior is respect for other people and their ideas in the workplace. Respect has been defined as giving considerations to oneself and to others. Respect entails giving consideration to the privacy of other people, their viewpoints, and personality and physical abilities. It is often the order that respecting other people begins with the acceptance that they deserve to be respected by others. However, many at times, the concept of respect at the workplace has been misunderstood or even manipulated for different purposes. This paper is aimed at reconstructing the definition of respect, as well as pointing out its pivotal elements and position to workplace environments. The topic is related to foundational leadership in the sense that it is an element that characterizes the behaviors of the organization. This topic is related to social intelligence in the sense it addresses an element (respect) that people need inter-relate in harmony. Social intelligence is understood as the ability of a person to get along with other well, in terms of human relationship (Kihlstrom & Cantor, 2007). In this regard, respecting the ideas of other people at the workplace can be considered as one of the dimensions of the social intelligence. Results There is a set of four social intelligence principles that could be utilized in approaching the subject of respect at the workplace. The first principle is humanization. The humanization social intelligence principle rules that it is crucial to recognize the humanity of other people. Such a form of understanding is considered to be undisputable in theoretical sense, yet is has often been overlooked in the daily practices. Perceiving other people as those with equal capabilities, anxieties, hopes and aspirations is considered as one of the crucial conditions for ensuring that respect is accorded in the workplaces. Another principle is that of unique perspective. This acknowledges the autonomy of every person; that every person has a unique perspective regarding the events that surround them. Such a perspective is a derivative of the personal experiences with the environment, including nature and nurture. The third principle is that the unconscious brains dominate the human mind. Human beings often guided by prior experiences and the frame of the things they expect are a subject of the prior experiences. This means that some of human behaviors are executed unconsciously. The fourth principle is socialization. Socialization is often perceived as the process where human behaviors are learned (Walumbwa & Christensen, 2012). People who are limited in terms of the skills of socialization often find it difficult to get along with other people. Lack of respect to other people’s ideas in the workplace arises because of limited exercising these principles. In this regard, it is imperative that when assessing the subject of whether workplace is characterized by respect, one should seek to know whether other people’s ideas are treated in line with these principles. The main challenge of lack of respect to other people’s ideas in the work place is dwindled organization performance and quitting employees. As employees join the work forces, organizations hold them at high expectations of success delivery. Currently, various organizations have gone an extra mile to come up with employee handouts, books that outline the organizations’ expectations and employees’ conducts with respect social responsibility and ethics. However, these may not seem to be enough. Organization can still count on employee morality to attain high levels of success. Pursuance of morality and respect for other people is not any different for the need to uphold employee citizenship behavior. Employee moral choices go beyond the employment’s basic requirement, yet it is, more often than not, considered as being discretionary at benefitting firms. What has also been emphasized in literature is also the point that culture is also one dimensions of respect at the workplace. People from different cultural context perceive respect differently. There are those that consider workplace arguments to be constructive and not compromising respect at the workplace. However, there are also the cultures where arguments with the bosses are disrespectful. In addition, what women may consider as not being respectful is different from what men will hold. Pritchett (2010) observes that a significant case of perceived lack of respect for other people at the work place is subject to cultural factors, as well as incompetence. Of particular interest is then how all these points could be incorporated into a feature in order to ensure that desirable results are achieved. Impact of the Relational/Interpersonal Challenge Arguably, employees do not leave organizations for any other reason other than in the manner that the managers treat them. One of these aspects is how respect is accorded at the workplace. This would in turn enable them to desist from making utterances or acting exhibiting behaviors that that demean the skills and abilities of other people in the workplace. It is through exhibited respect to others and oneself that one gains respect from other people. If managers criticize the work of other employees using derogatory comments in all their efforts towards organization success, they would not be in the position of commanding respect. The workplace respect requires that every person has to be treated without any abuse, regardless of whether they deliver quality work. In the cases that employees have tried all the best, criticizing them only makes them to feel demeaned (Schwartz, 2013). Clearly, this points to the fact that organizations should have strategies of ensuring respect at the workplace. The workplace sis often characterized by employees who do not only love to be associated with the company, but also who love working. Any act that may seem to demean them would make them leave. Managers who are always disruptive and critical, as well as those who are fond of disagreeing with their employees can be said to be lacking respect (Grace & Cohen, 2005). It is worth noting that other workers can also exhibit lack of respect to their fellow employees, and this has similar impacts. It is always possible that one person with a poor attitude would go a long way in influencing other workers. These clearly bring out the impact of the challenges of respect at the workplace to the leaders, as well as to the profession. It is the challenge for the leaders to ensure that they uphold respect within the organization in order to realize success. Similarly, it is a challenge to other workers to expect respect to other people’s ideas in the workplace in order to improve professionally, as well as make the workplace conducive. Thus, respect for other people’s ideas is a positive correlate of organization success, as well as career success. Respect to other people’s ideas in the organization enhances organization followership (Thilmany, 2007). Recommended Strategies: There are several strategies that could be effectively utilized by leaders when addressing the workplace respect challenges. Considering that lack of respect at the workplace is a derivative limited exercising of the mentioned social intelligence principles, the strategies should be such that they bridge the gaps. One way is by embracing a wide range of leadership qualities. For example, the bosses ought to be assertive. Assertion is a more desirable quality compared to submissiveness and aggressiveness. While it is good behavior for the general employees to be submissive, it is appropriate that bosses uphold assertion. Aggressive bosses are associated with brutality, inconsideration and excessive dominion when dealing with other employees, while Submissive ones are associated with subtlety, shyness and vagueness. On the contrast, assertive bosses are associated with tactfulness, politeness, effective communication, cordiality and positivity. The assertive qualities enable the bosses to be suited to achieving desirable results. Leaders should administer equality among the staff members. Bosses should not promote gender, racial or ethnical bias. This creates a harmonic working environment. Bosses should serve as good examples against acts of sexual harassment (Thorndike, 1920). This also requires the bosses to be influential to help uphold respect in the workplace. Noting that influencing does not entail manipulation or excess use of power, bosses should establish as well as maintain suitable working relationships between employees and customers. This will in turn trigger acceptance of his ideas by other employees. Bosses should use their persuasive skills in logical presentation of concepts. In turn, other employees will appreciate and consent to his proposals. Effective communication is imperative to good influencing capability. Four, bosses should be good negotiators. Negotiators fit in satiations that are contradictory, with each side inclined securing self-vested interests. However, at the end of the negotiations, the parties arrive and concessions. Better negotiators are known to be considerate to each side. These qualities are suited to decision making, a role associated with bosses. According to Goleman (2006), bosses should promote cultural diversity. Diversity management are efforts that are aimed at creating as well as maintaining a working environment that is positive; where the differences among individuals with diverse cultures are considered as a strength rather than as weaknesses. This is especially in consideration to the fact that at the work place, a staff with differing upbringing, nationalities as well as cultures is a usual phenomenon. In addition, it is important that a boss exhibit respect to the other employees, irrespective of whether they worker under him or not. In the case where respect ceases to exist, the organization will experience difficulties in running effectively. The third approach is by embracing the diversity management. Indeed, it has been proposed that diversity management could resolve various problems pertaining to respect of other people’s ideas in the workplace (Trompenaars, 1993). Diversity management can be defined as a process that aims at creating and maintaining a work environment that is positive, where individual differences as well as similarities are considered valuable, so that the individuals’ potential can be tapped and their contributions towards organizations’ objective and goals maximized. In organizations, the existence of staff employees with varying cultures, upbringing as well as nationalities is usual. In the daily running of the service sector organizations, communication is often of great importance. But in the presence above mentioned variations, conflicts are likely. Diversity management aims to offset chances of occurrence of these conflicts. But for diversity management the following consequences are expectable: employees’ demoralization, dwindled work performance, company’s earning of bad reputation, poor revenue generation and even increased employee turnover. It is therefore important that organization device proper ways of diversity management for employees to comply with. Diversity management is aimed at promoting a workforce that works in harmony within the service sector organization and hence exceed client expectations. According to Petit, Feltus and Dubois (2009), this is also set at creating awareness within the organization pertaining to diversity management, developing training programs in connection to diversity management, with a mandatory participation of new employees, and constant monitoring of the program success and making the necessary adjustments where due. Conclusion In conclusion, there is the potential for organizations to reach great heights of success by social intelligence. Social intelligence is regarded as the ability for people to get along with other well, in terms of human relationship and this clearly brings out respect. Respect has been defined as giving considerations to oneself and to others. Respect entails giving consideration to the privacy of other people, their viewpoints, and personality and physical abilities. In this regard, respect can be considered as one of the dimensions of social intelligence. However, even the definition for respect has been constraint by limited understanding, and some have utilized to for their gains. Respect for other people’s ideals is crucial for organization success, as well as ones career. One way of addressing the challenges of respect at the workplace is by utilizing the principles of humanization, socialization, autonomy and unconscious human nature. It calls upon leaders to exercise leadership skills, to be influential and expedite diversity management. However, respect to other people’s ideas integrates the perceptions of different people. It would be imperative to further seek ways of striking a balance in defining what entails respect to other people’s ideas on the culturally diverse contexts. References Grace, D. & Cohen, S., (2005) Business Ethics: Australian Problems and Cases. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goleman, D. (2006). Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. Bantam Books. Kihlstrom, J. & Cantor, N. (2007). Handbook of intelligence, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Petit, M., Feltus, C. and Dubois, E., (2009) Towards Strengthening employee's responsibility to enhance governance of IT, Case Study of COBIT RACI chart. Pritchett, P, (2010) Smart Moves: A Crash Course on Merger Integration Management. London: McGraw Hill. Schwartz, M, (2013), 'Developing and sustaining an ethical corporate culture: the core elements', Business Horizons, 56: 39-50. Thilmany, J., (2007), "Supporting Ethical Employees." HR Magazine, 52 (2):105–110. Trompenaars, F, (1993), Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business, London: Nicholas Berkley. Thorndike, E. (1920) Intelligence and its Use, Management, 140, 227-235., Walumbwa, F & Christensen, A (2012), 'Ethical leadership and group in-role performance: the mediating roles of group conscientiousness and group voice’, Leadership Quarterly, 20:953-964 Read More