Respect Is Not Earned
“Respect is earned” sounds like solid advice.
It’s short.
It feels principled.
And it’s repeated often enough that most people never stop to question it.
But in practice, it quietly excuses some of the worst leadership behavior teams experience.
Respect is not earned.
It’s given by default.
And leaders are responsible for what they do with it.
Where the Idea Goes Wrong
When someone says “respect is earned,” what they usually mean is not that competence matters or integrity matters. Those things obviously do.
What they often mean is:
- I don’t trust you yet
- I don’t owe you much until you prove yourself
- My position puts me above you
That framing doesn’t encourage accountability. It encourages distance.
Good leaders don’t start relationships by withholding basic decency. They start with trust, then protect it through their actions.
Everyone Starts With Respect
Every new hire.
Every junior engineer.
Every team member.
They walk in assuming good intent, fairness, and professionalism.
That respect is fragile, but it’s real.
The real leadership challenge isn’t earning respect.
It’s not wasting it.
How Leaders Lose Respect Without Realizing It
Most leaders don’t lose respect in dramatic, career-ending moments.
They lose it slowly.
Interrupting instead of listening
Dismissing questions as “obvious.”
Making decisions without context
Using titles as leverage instead of responsibility
Each moment seems small.
Taken together, they compound.
And once people stop believing you respect them, they stop offering their best thinking. They comply. They disengage. They wait.
Fear Isn’t Respect (It Just Looks Like It)
Fear often masquerades as respect.
People stop pushing back.
They stop challenging ideas.
They stop asking questions.
From the outside, that can appear to be alignment.
It isn’t.
It’s self-preservation.
Fear lasts only as long as people don’t have better options.
Respect lasts even when they do.
What Real Respect Actually Looks Like
Genuine respect isn’t flashy.
It’s consistency.
It’s predictability.
It’s fairness.
It’s following through.
Owning mistakes publicly.
Listening when someone disagrees with you.
It’s treating junior engineers with the same baseline dignity as senior ones, not because they’ve earned it, but because that’s the standard.
The Reframe Leaders Need
You don’t earn respect.
You inherit it.
And then you’re responsible for maintaining it through your words, your decisions, and your behavior—especially when things are stressful.
Every interaction either reinforces that respect or quietly erodes it.
Most leaders don’t notice which one they’re doing.
Final Thought
If you lead people, ask yourself this:
Are you preserving the respect your team gave you…
Or are you slowly burning it?
Because respect isn’t earned.
And once it’s gone, no title will bring it back.
🎧 Listen to the Episode
This post pairs with the podcast episode “Respect Is Not Earned.”
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