How to get people to respect you, really
I just taught a great leadership class in Guatemala. Yes, they were impressed by my credentials and accomplishments and how many listings came up when they Googled my name. In the end, this isn’t why I got great scores on the evaluation. It helped to gain their attention. To sustain it, I had to do something else: care about them.
I cared enough to teach them. I cared enough to look them in the eyes when I talked. I cared enough to let them speak, complain, explore and discover even when it wasn’t on the agenda. I cared enough to help them when they asked for it during breaks and after.
I am a well-trained storyteller. I coach and facilitate when I teach. Yet my class knows that I am there to improve their lives not just give them skills. I care about who they are as humans.
The result is a connection far bigger than the content alone could ever provide.
Whether you are teaching, managing, presenting, mentoring or leading a team, if you have respect but you don’t sincerely care, you are no better than the glib but disconnected professor you had in school.
When it comes to human relations, it’s never all about you. It’s about them. The person who cares the most about others, wins.
Hi Marcia,
I totally agree with you. As a retired NYC elementary school teacher (2001), I decided to substitute teach here in northern NJ for several years. I simply cared so much for children that I felt there was much more for me to give. In October of 2005, I was hired to take 2 classes a day for a month as a Library/Media teacher. It was a middle school of 5th and 6th graders. When it turned out a full time teacher couldn’t be found, I stayed on for the year and taught the classes Improvisational Comedy. In June, I received wonderful notes from the students saying that they will always remember what I taught them and how much they knew I truly cared “even though I was a ‘sub’ “!
Here was another life lesson that came unexpectedly and one that I will cherish always.
(All the Improv classes that you and I took at “Summer Camp” came in handy along with other classes I’ve attended over the years!)
Marcia, I couldn’t agree more. You always say it so well.
Thank you!
I teach English as a foreign language and have been known to tell my groups that I actually don’t care if they learn the language (upon which their eyebrows raise in surprise). Then I add that I do however care and hope that, by the time the course ends, they have become better people from having been my students. Not everyone is able to learn a particular subject equally well, but anyone who is just a bit open will develop as a human being. This is the truly rewarding part about teaching, knowing you have made your mark on generations of people.
