Respect – Photo credit: everydaypeoplecartoons.com
Happy Tuesday!
There’s an old West African folk tale about a slow tortoise and a fast hare competing in a race. Now why would these two even think about competing, right? It’s obvious who has the advantage here. Long story short, compete they did, and win the slow tortoise did, to the surprise, and most importantly, the RESPECT of all!
We all want R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and Aretha Franklin can’t sing it enough! And when it comes to our careers, we don’t just want it, we actually need it to forge relationships with colleagues, subordinates and superiors, and also just to get the job done.
When we walk in to a meeting room, we need to be respected for the expertise, personality and unique characteristics we bring in. As we describe our personal strengths and unique abilities to the hiring manager across the table during an interview, we need to sense a mutual respect. We are creatures of habit, but we strive with and for respect.
Not getting respect in the workplace, especially as a woman and a minority, can be a rather painful experience. As women in the workplace, especially as minority women, we’ve unfortunately been taught that our value has to be forcefully earned. That we must do more, be more, choose more, in order to be considered in the running for success. And that we must conform to most of the expectations society (ourselves included) places upon us, even when at radical opposites from who we are, what we aspire to and the way our lives are shaped.
Yet in the midst of all these external demands, from the urgent need to “lean in” to the gut-wrenching longing to have it all, we forget to honor our inner tortoises. Instead, we try to do more to match the hares of our times. Actually, we strive to rid ourselves of our precious shells so we can be more not like ourselves.
And then only to turn around and wonder why our super-human efforts and abilities are not earning us a spot in the boardroom, a mighty hammer to break the glass ceiling or at least some pay equality…
You can’t get the respect you don’t give to yourself. You can’t cross the finish line with legs that aren’t yours. And you can’t win a race you didn’t subscribe to in the first place.
And to gain respect at work or among a room-full of kindergarten kids, you must trust yourself, all of yourself, to run and finish the race. On your own authentic, genuine, persistent terms.
The Corporate Sis.
