Endless respect little man gives senior officer (7)
I believe the answer is:
admiral
'senior officer' is the definition.
'endless respect little man' is the wordplay.
'endless' means to remove the last letter.
'respect' becomes 'admire' (admiring is a kind of respecting).
'little man' becomes 'al' (short for Alex, Alastair etc**).
'admire' with its last letter taken off is 'admir'.
'admir'+'al'='ADMIRAL'
'gives' is the link.
(Other definitions for admiral that I've seen before include "Red butterfly at sea?" , "Chief commander of fleet" , "[NELSON] perhaps" , "(White or red) butterfly" , "Red butterfly in charge of the fleet" .)