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Learning Leadership from Dogs Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 June 2025
This topic was earlier slated for a later appearance and was going to saunter in as Chapter 9 in this book. However, seeing a natural fit with Chapter 5, I decided to focus this chapter on respect instead. Respect is a virtue that seems to be increasingly waning in this world of ours. People seem to be experiencing a lot of incivility at work and elsewhere, and a lack of respect seems to be getting to being endemic across societies. That does not auger well for the future of our overall civilization, as respect is the grease that helps propel the wheels of civilization. Cooperation and coworking go a long way further if respect is along for the ride. This absolutely applies in the workplace as well as in personal life. Leaders who are respectful find that their followers are respectful too, and sometimes, this works vice versa as well.
In this chapter, I will focus my explanation and discussion on how one can be respectful, and how one can command respect. You need both for optimal mileage—while it is important to be respectful to others, it is equally important for you to be able to command respect as well. Just like kindness, there is no point in being sublimely respectful in the midst of appalling disrespect. Limitless respect like limitless kindness in the face of disrespect or unkindness has no benefit for any individual, be it a leader or a non-leader.
Dogs absolutely fill in these two dimensions of respect really well. For instance, there are some dog breeds that inspire respect. When someone looks at certain breeds, they will automatically give those dogs respect. The appearance and history of those breeds dictate that respect is a given, when interacting with these dogs. The old chestnut about “Size Matters” actually does weigh in here considerably. And then, there are dogs that are respectful to the hilt—the polite lot, who are simply stunningly respectful in all their interactions. Sometimes, you have breeds that fit both descriptions, but of course, but for the purposes of this chapter, I’m going to focus on adhering to a demarcation of the two.
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