When you insist–despite all evidence to the contrary–on having a meeting instead of understanding that your meeting could have been an email, you have effectively disrespected the people in the meeting. Not just their time, but also their attention, their focus, and even their mental energy.

While such disrespect can be overcome, it is impossible to stop the erosion of trust that occurs in leadership when even the small things are ignored, or when the small things are made into much larger events than are warranted.

The objection, that “people don’t read the emails,” is facile on its face. Your employees read the emails. They just don’t think that responding to them on your timeline is the most important thing.

Alignment is happening on disrespect from both ends. But the alignment on respect is what’s lacking. To fix this misalignment, leaders must go first.