As a manager, you might be surprised by how well you can earn the respect of your employees by, well, not being a jerk! You can rise up as a positive leader who builds a workplace your employees will value—if you don’t start asking them to do these six unforgivable things.

Never ask your employees to:

1. Do anything you wouldn’t do. Great leaders get in the fray, like the king who fights with his army on the battlefield instead of watching from the ramparts. So yes, you’re the warehouse manager, and you’ve earned a cozy office. But you should also get in there to drive the forklift, move pallets, and get dirty when you need to.
2. Fall on your sword. You run the department, so you need to take responsibility for what happens in it, even when your employees make the mistakes. Remember, you are there to support and protect your team, not throw them under the bus to make yourself look better.
3. Tolerate abuse. No employee should have to deal with an abusive customer or vendor, plus they’ll get sick of that behavior super quickly. So you can either empower your employee, take over the interactions yourself, or move on from that customer/vendor. Your employees deserve the same professionalism they are expected to offer.
4. Lie. It shouldn’t, but it happens all the time: managers ask their employees to lie about little things, like asking the receptionist to lie about their whereabouts, or big things, like asking the junior attorney to falsify billable project hours. But every lie is important, and every lie impacts your reputation. You and your employees should aim for a culture of honesty and integrity.
5. Work without pay. Again, it shouldn’t, but it happens all the time that employees are asked to work off the clock. (Remember those Chipotle lawsuits?) Saving budget dollars is not worth breaking the law or cheating your employees out of a paycheck, and it will come back to bite you.
6. Work too many hours. In a lingering consequence of the recession, many companies are still asking employees to do more than their fair share of work, which means working more than their fair share of hours. If the work isn’t getting done in a typical 40-hour workweek, you need to re-evaluate work priorities and staffing, or you’re going to have some bitter, burned out employees.

Being a good manager means taking care of your employees and not putting them in uncomfortable or compromising positions. So think about these six behaviors, and make sure they don’t take hold under your leadership. When you take care of your employees, they’ll return the favor in spades!