Gaining respect the right way

All of us when we go up in the official ladder to higher positions of responsibility wish to gain respect from all in the work place. We also like people to respect us not by the positions we hold but by virtue of our own personality and personal traits. Respect is always earned by our actions while obedience is enforced. It is not uncommon to see workers and subordinate officials bow in deference to a boorish and arrogant superior. This is more out of fear for the harm he can do than genuine regard for the individual.
There are a few basic principles to gain respect from employees.
Do not try to be popular: When tough decisions are to be taken, the path of least resistance is always a chosen route and a busy boulevard. Bosses are afraid to hurt the sentiments of a large number of people and would like to be known as humane. But it is good to remember decisions are to be taken on the merits of the case for the good of the company and the long term interests of the employees. Cheap popularity and wise decisions are not always compatible.
Be strict in enforcing discipline: Good discipline should be consistent, without fear or favour and always with prior warning of the penalty for wrong doing. It should be fair and commensurate with the violation. The penalty should be given immediately after the violation and can be identified directly to the misconduct. It should be impartial with no blue eyed boys getting away Scot free. A boss who follows these principles would command greater respect than one who is erratic and selective in dispensing punishments.
Be a role model : Never put yourself in compromising situations in all things you do. Be they in dealing with office stationary, being punctual, dealing with lady staff, businesslike meetings, and efficiency in work, relations with peers or bosses and the polite language employed. Remember you are being watched all the time by your employees. They keep learning from you. There are no separate yardsticks to judge people.
Avoid favours from subordinates: We often come across managers sending employees to do personal errands on their behalf during duty hours. Unconsciously this puts them in obligation to them. A quid pro quo is expected and some leniency or favour demanded. The other employees tend to know the happenings. This brings down the boss from their esteem. As a rule do not employ subordinates for personal work. It is also good to avoid socializing with them like playing cards or drinking beer with subordinates after office hours. But bosses should invariably attend employees’ weddings or commiserating with them at their homes on their bereavements. The boss should be seen as a mentor and well wisher

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A Life That Matters

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things we collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Our wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what we owned or what we were owed.

Our grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear. So, too, our hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

It won't matter where we came from, or on what side of the tracks we lived, at the end.

It won't matter whether we were beautiful or brilliant.

Even our gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of our days be measured? What will matter is not what we bought, but what we built; not what we got, but what we gave.

What will matter is not our success, but our significance. What will matter is not what we learned, but what we taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate our example.

What will matter is not our competence, but our character. What will matter is not how many people we knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when we are gone.

What will matter is not our memories, but the memories that will live in those who loved us.

What will matter is how long we will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.

"We are, or become, those things which we repeatedly do.

Therefore, Excellence can become not just an event, but a habit ".

Albert Einstein.

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The Rules For Being Human

Author Unknown

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes,a only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error; experimentation. The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”

4. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, then you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. There is no better place than here. Where your there has become a here, you simple will contain another there that will again look better than here.

7. Others are mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. The answers lie inside you. The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. You will forget this.

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The Whole World Stinks

I read this passage somewhere (author not known) and wish to share with you all for the message it contains
" Wise men and philosophers throughout the ages have disagreed on many things, but many are in unanimous agreement on one point: "We become what we think about." Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "A man is what he thinks about all day long." The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius put it this way: "A man's life is what his thoughts make of it." In the Bible we find: "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he."
One Sunday afternoon, a cranky grandfather was visiting his family. As he lay down to take a nap, his grandson decided to have a little fun by putting Limburger cheese on Grandfather's mustache. Soon, grandpa awoke with a snort and charged out of the bedroom saying, "This room stinks." Through the house he went, finding every room smelling the same. Desperately he made his way outside only to find that "the whole world stinks!"
So it is when we fill our minds with negativism. Everything we experience and everybody we encounter will carry the scent we hold in our mind."

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Frugality

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.

Manifest plainness,

Embrace simplicity,

Reduce selfishness,

Have few desires

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Life is a long lesson in humility

Humility is a hall mark of great men. It is only the upstarts that suffer from ego and inflated opinion of themselves. The greater the position one climbs, humbler one generally becomes. The really great men rarely need the crutches of instant recognition and adulation. Pride is what most men display unwilling to accept what they really are and suffering illusions of what they really are not. I read that if men were clothed in humility, most would be scantily clad. Very few realize that we are in this world for a short period doing what is ordained and instead of taking pleasure at what is done, we attach importance to who did the work. We expect everyone to praise us and our work failing which we nurse bitterness. There is a craving for adulation and recognition in whatever we do. All the anger and frustration would not arise if we are not victims of self pity or self importance.

I have read that the great physicist and mathematician Einstein was embarrassed by the attention and admiration received by him very deservedly at that. He was humility personified when he wrote “There are plenty of the well-endowed, thank God. It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few of them for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular estimate of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque.” Contrast this with our own tin-pot politicians and bureaucrats who believe genuinely that all the good that is happening in our country is because of them and keep harping on it.. There is no need to prove ourselves to others. Bragging with pride only diminishes the positive feelings others may have for us. Our work or accomplishments would speak for themselves better.

How many of us respond patiently to ordinary men and women who either on the roads or offices asks us some questions? We are always in tearing hurry. Humility is genuine concern for others. Humility means being a better listener, being more patient with others, being helpful to utter strangers when help is sought for and letting others have their glory. Humility is in doing great and small acts of kindness without letting others know. Humility is in making peace with other’s imperfections and being more tolerant.

Humility is like underwear,essential, but indecent if it shows

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Ignoring misery

Miseries abound in life. The intensity of the misery and the pain it causes are a function of the mind. It is how we look at it. On a hot and sultry day when the power goes, the well placed man feels miserable when the fan or the air conditioner stops working. To the poor in the hut with no electric connection, the absence of power is no hardship. Miseries are the products of the mind. As we have seen the same situation produces different reactions to different people at different places. The eyes are just a device to see things. It is the mind that really sees and interprets. If the mind is clean, cleared of cobwebs of illusion, we tend to see things differently. What we considered at the night before we went to sleep as a great misery defying easy solution appears as manageable when we get up in the morning afresh. There is no change in the external situation. It is only a refreshed mind that looks at the problem in a different light.
Sri Ramana Maharishi says” the mind turned outwards on to the world becomes the ‘ego’ which is the small “self”, that is prey to innumerable wants and worries. Miseries and mortifications are the lot of such a lot. The same mind behaves or reacts differently in different men depending upon how it is conditioned. The mind turned inwards and in full view of the Self, it is oblivious to everything external to it. Miseries do not exist by themselves but what the mind makes or bargains for. They exist when allowed and disappear when ignored..Misery is relative to a person just as death in the family affects different individuals differently. When one daughter breaks down under sorrow, another one remains calm and composed. In sum miseries are the products of the mind. If you own them, they appear real. If you disown them they vanish.

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer

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