*1.3. Respect*

While disrespect has a negative impact on women leaders in the workplace, leaders and workers, in general, are more engaged, happier, and more likely to remain with an

organization when they feel respected [12]. Respect is often conceived of as "the state of being treated politely or being properly recognized for behavior" [14]. A culture of respect is essential for an organization to thrive and employees who feel respected feel valued and "thus often invested in developing their professional identity within their organization and cooperating with their teams, thus fostering organizational commitment" [14]. Individual respect translates into an enhanced collaborative process that strengthens not only personal identity and self-efficacy, but also the identity and efficacy of everyone in the group, team, or organization.

Huo and Binning [15] implied that there are two aspects to respect: one that supports the functioning of the collective (the organization) and another that supports the well-being of the individual (personal). Receiving respect at work supports the individual's ability to develop or strengthen positive self-identity that can result in positive personal and work-related outcomes [16]. Organizations that make creating a respectful environment a priority have found that respect contributes to job satisfaction and employee engagement [15]. Respect is one behavior that could lead to greater employee engagement and commitment [17].

Being treated with respect was the top contributor to overall job satisfaction based on a survey conducted by the Society of Human Resources Management [18]. Seventytwo percent of employees at all levels rated being treated with respect as very important. Organizations that make creating a respectful environment a priority have found that respect contributes to job satisfaction and employee engagement [19]. Showing respect can lead to greater employee engagement and commitment [19]. Furthermore, respect contributes to an inclusive environment. When managers and leaders respect all employees, they will treat all employees with equal value, build relationships with them, and create an environment free of discrimination and harassment. Research indicates that being valued and treated with respect can help create a positive work environment where employees feel fulfilled, loyal, engaged, and motivated to perform at their very best [16]. According to a survey of 20,000 employees conducted by Porath [20] for the Harvard Business Review, respect was the leading behavior that encouraged greater commitment and engagement. Pearson and Porath found that respectful behavior in the workplace was declining [11]. On the contrary, as Pearson and Porath [11] found, disrespect has increased in organizations. What was lacking in their analysis concerns why.

LaGree et al. [14] found that respectful communication had a positive impact on building resiliency, engagement, and job satisfaction by surveying 1,036 young workers in the United States from ages 21–34. The authors divided respect into respectful engagement and autonomous respect. They defined respectful engagement as occurring through "the relationship among team members, being interpersonally accepted, valued, and affirmed as part of a team" and autonomous respect as being personally accepted and respected by the organization in a way that coincides with "an individual's internal standards," similar to particularized respect as defined by Rogers et al. [21].

In other words, autonomous respect would manifest when organizational members would communicate with individuals in a manner that matched the individual's values of respectful communication, such as, for example, commending an individual for their ideas, contributions, and achievements. Autonomous respect would also manifest when members communicate with team members with words, such as "please" and "thank-you," using last names in greeting until requested to use first names, and other communication styles consistent with individual team members internal values of respect. They concluded that autonomous respect was an even stronger generator of resilience than respectful engagement. Their study highlights the importance of respect not only to strengthen engagement and job satisfaction but also to help build employees' ability to effectively navigate turbulence and external shocks such as the pandemic, as well as incidences of disrespect and other adversity in the workplace.
