Respecting someone's time

Many of us have a lot of excuses for being late even when we are in complete control of our time. For example:

• "Sorry, the weather is terrible and traffic was bad."
• "Sorry, I was too focused and time escaped me completely."
• "Sorry, I was helping someone with an issue."

Whenever you are late to a meeting, you are disrespecting someone's time.

If you are chronically late to meetings, you are also saying "My time is more important than yours." — regardless of how genuinely sorry you are or how much you contribute to those meetings.

So just don't be late whenever you are in full control of your schedule.

There are also people who are chronically late to meetings whose apologies probably feel insincere, too. What you would often find with these people is that they also tend to interrupt meetings without permission to do so: cancelling meetings with short notice; arriving selectively late to meetings whose average authority of the participants is relatively lower; prolonging meetings with their authority and making everyone else late to their next meetings; and so on.

Where possible, call them out and explain that it's not okay.

If you are the one interrupting meetings all the time and somehow think it's okay: please stop and reflect.