To check whether you are respected, you can ask yourself a few simple questions. Do your words carry weight? Do others listen when you speak? Not because they are forced to listen by power, but because they want to. Because they give you legitimacy and willingness.
Are you satisfied with the influence you have on others, or would you like to be taken more seriously? If that is your stated goal and you want to give your words more weight, you must be prepared to pay a price. So what needs to happen for you to actually succeed and be respected?
Being respected: The difference between sympathy and competence
Distinctions help us improve our ability to differentiate and grow mentally. Let's take "sympathy" and "competence" as examples: We enjoy spending time with people we like. We feel validated and noticed by them. We want to have a coffee or a beer with them because we feel comfortable around them. People who run for political office, for example, have to work hard on their likeability in order to be successful in this field, because people who have relied primarily on their competence in the past tend to show deficits in the area of likeability. From a distance, however, their competence is difficult to grasp. As a result, the importance of likeability increases and the impression is created that respect can only be gained through likeability.
Nevertheless, there are extremely likeable people who use their networks to climb to high positions—but who lack competence. These people therefore need to work on their competence in order to truly earn respect.
When it comes to sympathy, the focus is on people. Sympathy promotes interest and understanding for one another. When we ask, "How are you today?", we mean it. Competent people impress with their wealth of experience and knowledge. Here, the factual level is at the center of the interaction. Take a visit to the doctor as an example: good professional treatment does not necessarily mean a warm welcome or a feel-good experience.
More charisma: The golden mean
It is advisable to first work on your own competence. Ultimately, this will always prevail. However, it is important to find a happy medium, because only a balance between sympathy and competence leads to charisma. Competence has a significant influence on your credibility, but sympathy increases your impact on others.
Three steps to gaining respect from friends and foes alike
What does it take for people to respect you? Accept what you have and what you don't have. Ask yourself: Do I come across as likable, or do I have strong skills? You might also want to talk to someone in your circle—a colleague, for example. Admitting this to yourself can be painful, but it's the price you have to pay for growth.
What can you influence? What can't you influence? Focus only on what you can change. Once you know what you can influence, increase the factors that influence your likeability or competence. Improve your professional skills if you find that you are lacking in this area. Conversely, increase your likeability towards others if your competence is already well developed. This will enable you to respect and accept those around you.
Increase credibility
If we want to be taken seriously and respected by friends and foes alike, we have a goal in mind. Increasing credibility is the way to achieve this. This means we are moving between results-oriented and impact-oriented language.
If you are interested in and demand such mental differentiation, want to think deeply about it, and find it beneficial to exert yourself cognitively, then visit the most effective gym for people who really want to grow.
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Your team at the Grundl Leadership Institute
