Leadership Lessons from Mom: Listen to your mother's advice!

Lesson #6

Be polite.

Teaching her children to be polite is one of a mother’s most important goals. She wants her sons and daughters to be respectful, to mind their manners, and to be polite to other people. Moms look unfavorably on rudeness—in fact, being rude or impolite, particularly to grown-ups, causes a mother considerable embarrassment. Getting children to say “please” and “thank-you” is a constant challenge for moms.

Are politeness and common courtesy important in work situations? Think about the last time you were treated rudely at work. How did it make you feel? Did it change the way you think about that individual or cause you to lose confidence in yourself? Did you make mistakes because it threw you off track? Most of us have had at ...