Showing respect is more than politeness. It’s one of the fastest ways to get respect, build strong relationships, and increase your social effectiveness.

At The Power Moves, we study respect through the lens of interpersonal power dynamics. From that work, we codified a practical framework we call power protecting™.
In plain terms, power protecting is about showing respect in ways that preserve other people’s sense of power, dignity, and status—so they feel safe, respected, and more willing to cooperate, connect, or be influenced.

In this article, you’ll learn clear, practical ways to show respect—without being weak or submissive—while strengthening relationships and increasing your influence with high-value people.

Intro: Give & Get Respect

In our framework, power protecting™ means:

Approaches, strategies, and techniques that protect other people’s power, status, dignity, reputation, and face—so interactions stay respectful, cooperative, and productive.

While we codified and systematized power protecting, the behavior itself is deeply human and widely observable in effective social interactions:

• Make and keep friends and allies: because people prefer those who show respect. It also makes fewer enemies
• Ingratiate superiors: leaders and bosses dislike subordinates who disempower them, and promote those who empower them (Gordon, 1996)
• Better leadership with intrinsic motivation, especially from the top performers who can get any job

Finally, power protecting is also a cornerstone of an honorable approach to life:

How to Show Respect

A heartfelt apology after you disempowered others is a foundational aspect of showing respect. Notice both the body language and the facial expression

There are a million ways to show respect and to power protect.

Fortunately, we don’t need to list them all.
And the high-level guidance is both simple and effective:

Treat others as you want to be treated.

Or:

1. Don’t be a jerk
2. Offer minimum baseline of respect and consideration

The only drawback with this high-level guidance is that it requires knowing what’s the optimum balance between jerk behavior and overly deferential behavior -ie, it requires some power awareness-.

So let’s go more in detail:

1. Avoid Over-Dominance

For example:

• Over physical dominance: touching too much, backslapping, barging your way through, etc.
• Over-teasing
• Demeaning “jokes” & all various covert power moves
• Rudeness/disrespect

🔎Example: Macron Disrespects Trump, Starts A War

Macron wanted to dominate Trump.

But when you disrespect others, guess what happens?
You go into ‘negative social capital’. They resent you, and want revenge to get even.

Trump took revenge on Macron on two separate occasions:

Also see ‘how to disrespect someone‘.

1.2. Avoid Gratuitous Power Moves

Principle:

Any gratuitous power move on friends or allies is a major red flag of a lose-win character.

Also avoid when first meeting someone, and in non-competitive contexts.

Just two examples of gratuitous power moves:

• Showing up late
• Making them come to you when you could meet halfway
• Power Hoarding
  • Credit withholding: not giving proper credit
  • Apologies withholding: not apologizing when an apology is called for

And avoid manipulation as well:

• Social exchange manipulations such as saying “I did just for you” just to increase other people’s debt of gratitude

2. Persuade With Strategic Respect

General rule:

⚖️ The quicker and more abrupt the change of mind, the greater the disempowerment

Influence is about power.
And accepting influence means accepting someone else superiority -be it superior intelligence, expertise, problem-solving skills, or whatever-.

The influenced loses power against you -and loses social status, if it was public-.

Generally speaking, the higher status they are compared to you, the more they resist your influence.

So respectful communication is crucial to persuade higher-status individuals, like your boss.

Research shows that to persuade upwards:

• Save face (Jenkins & Dragojevic, 2013)
• Be polite (Golish, 2009)
• Use positive framing (Levine & Boster, 2001)

🔎 Use Positive ‘Good to Great’ Frames

For example:

Empowering:
Our employees are generally happy, so we’re good. <— 📣🟰 You’re doing a good job

I looked at competitors and survey data <— 📣🟰 I’m no lone genius, I have data

and these proposals may <— 📣🟰 I’m no ultimate teacher

further improve loyalty. <— Uplifting “good to great” frame, rather than “sh*t to great”.
(…)
If it sounds potentially interesting, <— 📣🟰 You’re the decision-maker
I’m happy to discuss implementation and take the lead

3. Persuade By Respecting Their Intelligence (No “Teacher’s Frames”)

Principle:

⚖️ The more you act like a teacher, the more others lose power as pupils

Giving advice also disempowers others.

Reviewing advise response theory and accompanying research the Routledge Handbook on Persuasion says that politeness is crucial to giving advice.

Respectful advice is more persuasive (MacGeorge et al., 2013). Better yet, make others want to ask your opinion, because solicited advice is viewed as more useful than unsolicited advice (Paik, 2020).

🔎 Instead of “This Is The Truth”, Say “It Was Helpful To Me”

Me: (shares a video lambasting the nutritionist he followed) He changed the way I look at nutrition, so sharing it with you in case it may be equally helpful

Note:

• “He changed”: It’s not me teaching, but an expert third party
• “It was helpful to me” is a caring, “want to give you value” frame
• “Sharing with you in case it may“ he’s the final judge, and I’m cool with his decision
• “Feel free to ignore” grants him the freedom to not even watch the video

The disempowering approach would be “The guy you’re following is crap, listen to me that I know better”.

Albeit there are exceptional situations for anything, that’s a bad approach for friends, equals, and other high-power men.

Learn more in:

• Growth mindset power dynamics
• Teacher and pupil frames

4. Task & Request With A Minimum Baseline Respect

Tasks and requests are all about power.

Principle:

⚖️ Tasking assumes higher power, and the more rude the tasking, the bigger the disempowerment

So overly direct and dominant requests are disrespectful and can create resentment unless you power-protect the receiver.

Just imagine someone tells you:

Colleague: Hey! <— Doesn’t even dignify with your name

I need the PBS report <— No how are you or social balm

send it to me now please <— No asking if you can, no telling you he will “owe you one”, and no justification for high-priority execution

How would you feel?

Most people with any social awareness -or with a spine, for that matter-, would think “Who the f*ck does he think he is to come at me like that“?.

Some common formats from least to most power-protecting include:

• Can you please…
• Could you… … Please?
• Do you mind…
• Do you think you can…
• Would it be possible…
• Would it bother you to…

And pro tip from politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987):

• “You’re so good at this, could you help with...” <— Requests while building them up

But most of all:

👉🏼 Calibrate to your status: be more respectful when you’re lower power to increase your persuasiveness (Golish & Olson, 2000)

4.2. Add Diminitutives to Increase Compliance

For example:

• Negotiation (nibbling): We’re getting there, just a small thing: if you can add X, we got a deal
• Everyday Life: Hey, hi, Can you please move a bit so that we can both fit

Time constraints are also persuasion power moves.

For example:

Example from the author in PU

For the alumni, pay attention to how I say it.

5. Reject Others Tactfully

Requests are all about social exchanges and power.

Principle:

⚖️ The more curt the rejection, the bigger the disempowerment

When people feel their request was ‘fair’ a denial makes them feel diminished and slighted. Especially in romantic and friendship contexts.
Hence, to maintain social capital and good relationships you must reject with tact.

We have several articles on strategic rejections:

• How to say no
• How to say no to a date
• How to reject his sexual advances and still get a relationship

This also applies to favors.
As Blau notes in his seminal Exchange and Power in Social Life, the initial give’, which may be an offer or the first step towards friendships, can turn into cordiality or hostility because the offer cannot be refused without being insulting.

P.S.:
“Tactfully” is not the same as “nicely”.
You can be strong and firm, but still respectful.

6. Justify It: Provide A Reason For Your Requests Or Exceptions

From a famous example in psychology research:

Experimenter: Excuse me, I have five pages, may I use the machine because I have to make some copies

It worked 93% of the time despite the uncompelling reason.
Almost as effective as the legitimate “because I’m in a rush” -which had 94% compliance rate-.

Cialdini attributed the persuasive power to the trigger word “because”.

In truth, that worked because “because” is the keyword bridge to power protecting.
Indeed the study also says that “the female experimenter had a higher rate of compliance than the male experimenter”.
And that’s because letting a woman go first is associated with “gallantry” (empowering), rather than “submissiveness” (disempowering).

Providing a reason works because:

1. You expend effort, intrinsically power-protecting because higher effort is lower dominance
2. You show consideration for others by providing a rationale for your task or request
3. Bonus only, you provide an actual and logical reason

Providing a rationale works particularly well with demanding tasks or exception-seeking because people feel ‘less suckers’ for accepting your large demand.

Use The ‘But It’s Up To You’ Format When You Have Little Power
Adding an out like “but you are free to refuse” significantly boosts persuasion.
In one study, this simple line increased donations from 10% to 47.5%, and doubled the average amount.

7. Assume Good Intentions

Some ways of assuming good intentions is to assume:

• Mistake, rather than a deliberate power move
• Misunderstanding, rather than one party fully to blame
• “You didn’t mean it that bad way” type of justification

Assuming good intentions also prevents defensiveness and escalations and helps people to own up and apologize, further mending the relationship.

Pretend it’s a mistake if convenient but take note
Granting the benefit of the doubt doesn’t mean you necessarily believe in people’s good faith. Red flags are significant even when “by mistake”.

Reverse of the Law: Disempowering Assumption

Whether the negative assumptions are direct or sub-communicated, they sub-communicate you think lowly of their character.

Take this example of a customer who mistakenly purchased Seduction University more than once:

Customer: I am extremely worried about these extra sums being taken from my account

Think about the sub-communicates.
If he’s extremely worried, it sub-communicates that the business is untrustworthy. And the wording of “extra sums being taken” sub-communicates that it was the business’s fault, rather than his mistake.
(Also, generally avoid that bitch talk).

8. Save Their Face

Saving face was popularized by Andrew Carnegie as a social skill technique.

It’s an important subset of power-protecting, and also part of respecting others.

To save face means to “help avoid embarrassment” and “avoid making people feel bad”.

Relieve Them From Blame & Guilt

• Normalize it: say that whatever “bad thing” happened, it happens frequently, or happens to many people
• Relate: for example, share when something similar happened to you
• Jump through it: if someone shares a weakness or failure, quickly say “sorry to hear”, and then move on
• Swap “you” for impersonal pronouns such as “people”, “when one does… ” or “it can happen that”
• Blame-shift to external circumstances, third parties, or simply “life” and “questions of odds”

And finally, albeit you want to be careful with this:

• ⚠️ Take (part of) the blame. But if you’re not to blame, only do with honorable men or some may take advantage of it
  Eg.:
• “Maybe I didn’t get something, but…”
• “Maybe it’s me, but…”
• “I’m new so still learning the ropes… “

If the blame is indeed yours, of course, own it.

Sen an example from the forum while I was preparing this article:

Me: (replies in another thread, sub-communicating the quoted post was off-topic, but takes the blame for the off-topic) my bad for starting the off-topic there

9. Jump Through The Issue: High-Power Power protecting

This is where advanced strategizing shines through.

When you jump through the issue you are both high-power, goal-oriented AND power-protecting.

It works great because jumping through the issue and into the solution automatically power-protects by shifting the focus away from the mistake (that’s “thread-minimizing” in frame control terms).
All the while, you’re being goal-oriented, high-power, and leader-like.

For example, imagine you’re a lawyer and catch a mistake by the notary that would significantly increase your client’s costs.
This is how you jump through the issue:

Her: (forgets a loophole to save taxes, a major mistake)
You: Hi, thank you for the quote and fast turnaround, I appreciate that. I think we can apply the XWZ ruling to it. Can we do that please, I want to help my client lower the taxes

You don’t even mention the mistake and focus on how to move forward.

The power protection is also sub-communicated in the:

• Attitude: goal-driven, concerned about bottom-line results
• Matter-of fact communication: it is what it is, neutrally, without making a fuss about anything
• Customer-centric approach shifts the focus from mistake, to end goal: the “that’ll help my client lower the taxes“. You’re not doing this out of concern for “mistakes”, but for your customer
• Brevity / voice: if in text, short and to the point. If on a call, with a flat tonality

And:

• Power protection elements:
  • Warmth: “Thank you for”, and “appreciate”
  • Standard power protection: The “I think” and “that’ll help my customer” are the power-protection bits here

Higher power, faster, more direct, more professional… And even more respectful.

To balance giving respect with getting respect, see Power University