How to Get a Promotion: Treat Everone Like You Do the CEO

Leadership Strategy Number Eight

Treat the mail clerk and the secretaries and the waiters and waitresses who wait on you with the same courtesy and respect as you do the CEO. People who are rude to people they deem beneath them and nice to people they deem above them are phonies and as a rule, phonies don’t get promoted.

There is a friend of mine who is an upper level manager. When he is considering someone for a promotion, he takes them to lunch to observe how he or she treats the waiters and waitresses who wait on them. His reasoning is: the way they treat the waiters and waitresses who wait on them will be the way they will treat the staff that he gives them to manage.

Not too long ago, I was talking with a motivational speaker. He is part of an elite group that travels around the country speaking to thousands of people. He told me that a member of this group announced his retirement and he needed to find a replacement. There was a speaker he was interested in hiring who was speaking in Kansas City. The motivational speaker flew to Kansas City and waited back stage for this particular speaker to finish his speech.

After the speech and before the motivational speaker had a chance to approach the speaker, he observed a little Hispanic girl bring him a glass of water on a tray and she accidentally spilled it all over him. The motivational speaker said, “you would not believe the rudeness with which he treated that little girl over an accident.” He said, I turned around and got a cab to the airport and we hired someone else.

That act of rudeness cost that speaker hundreds of thousands of dollars and he never knew it. Life has this crazy sense of humor and as soon as you are rude to someone, it will come back to bite you in the backside. If you are rude to someone in your company, he or she just could end up being your boss. Here’s a leadership strategy that will advance you in life: treat everyone with the same courtesy and respect that you would a CEO.