There are a few things about respect that I’d like to clear up.

Respect is a two-way street.  If you do not respect me, it is silly, selfish, and deluded of you to think I will respect you.

Do not confuse someone’s fear of you for their respect of you.  The two emotions actually have a directly proportional inverse relationship; one is the opposite of the other, not the analogue.

Respect is always commanded.  Respect is never demanded.  Obedience can be demanded.  Fear.  Groveling.  But not respect.

The ability to respect others begins with the ability to respect yourself.  Note that ‘self-respect’ and ‘self-esteem’ are two different things.  I’m bi-polar; I sometimes hate myself.  But I hate myself with respect.

The above paragraph is equally valid if you replace every instance of the word “respect” with the word “love.”

If I do you a favor – let’s say loan you twenty bucks for food – with respect, then I am loaning (or giving) you that twenty bucks because I respect you and you need it.  If I am loaning it to you so that I can come back two weeks later and tell you that you owe me forty bucks, or that I need my septic tank cleaned and you have to do it because “you owe me,” or so I can guilt-trip you into sleeping with me, or so I can tell all my friends what a great human being I am because I loaned you twenty bucks, then I am loaning you that twenty bucks because I don’t understand respect, and I think I can purchase it.  This is frankly one of the most common and infuriating traits of human beings I’ve met in my life; charity for the sake of reward.  Charity is its own reward.

(And if you tell me you need twenty bucks for food and you really need it for weed or smokes or whatever, then you’re a jerk and a thief and you suck.  I’d have given you the twenty for smokes if you’d asked for it honestly; if you lie to me, that twenty dollars will be the price of my respect for you.)

If you are in a position of power – for instance, if you are an employer and you know your employees need their jobs and are at your mercy – then you owe the people over whom that power holds far more respect than they owe you.  Without them, you do not exist.  If you disrespect them by lying to them, manipulating them, talking out of both sides of your mouth, failing to make action meet promise, playing passive-aggressive or good cop-bad cop games, and so forth, then eventually you will be without them, and you will not exist. 

When the rubber meets the road, EVERYONE has a point at which the things they have to do to work aren’t worth what they’re getting rewarded for the work.  That point is usually right around the same point they stop feeling like an employee or partner or child, and start feeling like your bitch or profit center or slave.

If you have the respect of others, you have power. 

If you fail to respect others in return, you’ll have neither power nor their respect.