Relationships are the #1 currency of leadership – how are yours?
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Relationships are the #1 currency of leadership – how are yours?
We all know the saying “it’s not what you know, but who you know.” There is some gold in this saying if we want to create meaningful success for our businesses and ourselves. But instead of leaving it to fate, let’s take a look at how we can create the relationships we need for the future in a more deliberate and intentional way.
Leaders rely on all sorts of people, in all sorts of roles, to achieve their vision and performance goals. Of course, organisations do too. In fact, your professional relationships may be the most important currency you have as a leader. For leaders to achieve their vision and performance goals they need to surround themselves with the people who will help move them forward.
Developing strong professional relationships with as many people as possible represents a worthy goal. However, a small number of people in your network likely have a disproportionate say about whether you succeed or not. By identifying and nurturing these key relationships, you can increase your chances of success while focusing your time and attention on the relationships that really matter.
When we are considering our relationships, I like to get people to think about:
the current relationships they have
completing a ‘heat map’ that will help determine the health of each relationship and whether it is critical for the future or not
the additional relationships they will need in the future to achieve their Big Picture
Current Professional Relationships
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It’s always useful to take stock of the current relationships we have. It helps to have clarity over whether each relationship is a professional relationship or a friendship. Sometimes we can get these relationships confused as we all end out developing friendships through our place of work. The key here is to clearly determine if the relationship has some impact on your professional career. Does the relationship help you achieve your current work goals and is the relationship important for where you want to head in the future?
It’s also worth remembering that some people get concerned about your big plans. Perhaps they are not that comfortable with change themselves and therefore if you were to move on to these bigger and better places, they would be left behind. Not everyone wants their world to change that much, so be mindful of these people in your life and what kind of relationship you want or need to have with them. In some extreme cases, we might find that we have some toxic relationships that are not serving us now, and we know they are definitely not going to serve our Big Picture for the future. If that’s the case, it can be healthy to graciously bow out of the relationship or re-categorise it so you don’t consume too much social capital on something that is not a part of where you ultimately want to be. Robin Sharma has a great quote, “the business of business is relationships; the business of life is human connection.” So, to help ourselves move forward, we need to connect with the relevant people and continue to work towards our goals.
Quality over Quantity
Once we have our list of current relationships, we want to develop what I call a ‘heat map’ to determine the quality of the relationship and its importance in terms of collaboration.
If we have people on our list where there is mutual value in the collaboration and the health of the relationship is strong, then we have a trusted adviser and someone who will likely support us to achieve our future goals. We want to keep interacting with these individuals in a way that provides value.
If we have someone with who we see value in collaborating, but the health of the relationship is currently low (we might not even be on their radar), then we want to create value and show them often. This is where we need to have strong influencing skills and approach the collaboration based on what’s in it for them.
We might have people where we have great relationships but the value to collaborate is low. In these cases, we want to spend the appropriate amount of time to maintain the relationship. These relationships may be the source of referrals or introductions in the future and it’s always useful to have supporters in your network.
For those relationships where there is low value of collaboration and the health of the relationship is not that strong and it’s not someone you need in your future then don’t bother, save the social capital and spend it somewhere that matters.
Professional Relationships for the Future
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Once you are clear on where you are heading in the future, you want to start thinking about the people you will want and need to have professional relationships with. In some cases, you may not have met these additional people yet. We need to get creative around how we can meet these people and be intentional about setting those plans in place. Again, identify who they are and why they will be valuable to you in the future. You also want to determine how you will be of value to them and start thinking about what you can do today, to help you get one step closer to an introduction.
I don’t know about you but I’ve never been a huge fan of networking just for the sake of it. I know there are people out there who love doing that but that’s not the reality for a large proportion of the population. So, being intentional about who we want to have in our network, based on where we are heading in the future, gives us the motivation and the reason why it might be important for us to network. Once we understand this and have the commitment and drive around our Big Picture, we might be more inclined to network with purpose.
If you would like to get more clarity around the relationships you need or want to move your career or business forward, we should chat. Professional relationships form a component of my Leading with Impact 1:1 Coaching Programme. If you are ready to make some meaningful progress and gain more clarity around what you want your future impact to look like, we should chat.