Cultivating meaningful professional relationships is a core component of effective leadership. These nine strategies highlight how leaders can build trust, encourage collaboration, and strengthen communication within their networks through intentional, people-focused behaviors.
Key Insights
- Strong professional relationships rely on mutual investment, emotional intelligence, and consistent, intentional communication.
- Building connections takes time and requires skills such as active listening, conflict resolution, and understanding individual needs—including both professional and personal support.
- Effective leaders, like Director Michael Hoffman, demonstrate the value of personalized engagement by knowing their team members personally and showing genuine interest in their well-being and contributions.
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Welcome back. I don't know about you, but I find Alexander Lyon very easy to listen to, and I like the fact that his key points are easy to understand and encouraging enough for me to say, you know, I should be able to do that if I'm not already doing it. But doesn't it start with really being interested in other people? And if we have no interest in other people, some of us more, some of us less, then yeah, it might be a bit more of a struggle for you to build these networks.
But what I can probably tell you, as you build the networks and improve the quality of the relationships within the networks, chances are you're going to find them to be very interesting, very informative, and ultimately very enjoyable as well as valuable. All right. As we move forward, okay, hold the thought.
We're building these quality relationships. We're really investing in these relationships. We're doing that because they are also investing in us.
It's mutual, mutual benefit. So, what else do we have to consider as we're working on this in our leadership strategies? Well, we have a few here that I think are worthy of us. Again, think of this as a checklist, if you will.
Building connections. You know what? It takes time and effort, doesn't it? I've said that multiple times already today. But there are some things that you can do that you can begin immediately if you're not already doing them.
So the first one says, identify your relationship needs. Do you know what you need from others? And do you know what they need from you? And do you understand that these could be critical in building better relationships? I will tell you that I've mentioned already that I'm a very social person. And I went before COVID from traveling all over the United States and internationally, teaching leadership and communication courses in the federal government setting, to, oh my goodness, everything just went virtual.
And it has remained so since 2020. And one of the things that I found is, oh my goodness, I'm not a mountain person. I'm not seeing all my buddies in Washington like I used to.
And it was interesting. A group of us instructors started a Zoom. In the beginning, we were doing it weekly.
And then we went every two weeks. Now we still have a core group that meets once a month, which meets on Zoom. And we're in different curriculum areas.
And we share what's working. We share any difficulties that we're running into and different ideas for how to deal with virtual training. And we are supporting one another.
And for me now, it has become a friendship. And just recently, one of our group members lost her husband very unexpectedly. And it was really interesting to see how this Zoom work group came behind our friend and supported our friend and sent her our love.
And one of the things that the other instructor, the instructor who just lost her husband, said was, Wow, what a group. What a group. And so meeting needs not only from the work perspective, but from the true friendship perspective, might be something that you know you need.
And it's okay to need that. You know what? You've got to have those good people skills. And the beauty of people skills is that you can learn how to do them.
Some of us, yes, have a more natural inclination than others. But you know, we all need to work on them. And we all need to improve them.
And we all need to invest in them. And so we really do want to consider how well we are in our collaborative skills? How strong are we in our communication skills? How do we deal with conflict? Do we have the skill for that? The third one says focus on your emotional intelligence, EI. And our next module is all about emotional intelligence.
So if it's not something that you are particularly familiar with, you will be by the time we work through our next module. But the short version of emotional intelligence is, it's your ability to recognize your own emotions, and then better understand what those emotions are telling you. And in doing so, you become much more adept at identifying and handling the emotions and needs of others.
And we know that's a very, very important skill set for high-quality leadership. Mindful listening. Are you really truly listening to what others have to say? Or are you just kind of nodding and grunting? You know what, when you talk less and listen more, it's amazing how better prepared you are to open your mouth when it's your turn.
Number five, schedule time to build relationships. And it can be about the small interactions, can it not? But those small interactions really are the things that lay the groundwork for strong relationships. So start small.
I have a great example of a director who was a master at building relationships. And this was a while back. But his example was so memorable, it really sticks with me and is still so shareable.
So Michael Hoffman was the director of the Passport Agency in New York City. And I went there multiple times to teach communication courses and customer service courses. It was an agency of about 300 people.
So over the period of time that I went there, I ultimately did training with almost all of those 300 people. What was so interesting for me to watch, especially when I was teaching customer service, I thought to myself, I don't need to be here to teach it because they have such an example of what it looks like in action in this director Hoffman. What did he do? This was a director who knew every one of those 300 employees by name.
He could engage in conversation about something that was important to them, each of those 300 people. How do I know? I watched him do it. He would come into class in the morning before we got started, and he'd be making his rounds from the table groups.
And I'd be listening to the conversations, and he would know something about one person's family. He would know something about their interest in the theater. He would know something about a problem they were dealing with at work.
He made his rounds with every single person and knew something about every single person. I did then, once he would leave the room, I would ask my class, So what is it about this Michael Hoffman? And what they would say over and over and over again, remember I was there multiple times, that this was a person who invested in them. This was a person whom they trusted implicitly, had ultimate respect for, and it was based on the quality of the relationships that he created with them.
Now, he had to follow that up with good decision-making, problem-solving, and strategic leadership, but what they talked about was the quality of the relationships. Now, managing your boundaries? Yeah, you make time, but not too much. You still have to manage your time and manage what you are doing so that you have time to devote to some social interactions at work.
Just like Lyons mentioned to you, appreciate the people around you. Continue to express to them how valuable they are to them. Obviously, it's not anything that's disingenuous.
Genuinely tell people what they've just done and how it positively impacted you and your work. A positive attitude is really helpful, and it doesn't mean that we have to be fake and just running around saying, Everything is wonderful. No, it's not wonderful.
Hey, we've got some challenges here, but yeah, you know what? Because of who we are as a team, we can figure this out. That's a positive, and you know what? Zip your mouth. There's no need to gossip.
All right, so you've taken a look at those nine leadership strategies, and now it's time for you to use this as a checklist for yourself. You're going to see in your guide that there is a very simple chart with those nine strategies listed, and you're going to rate yourself, and you can use a check mark or some kind of mark that you're okay at this strategy. It could be better, but for now, I'm pretty good.
An X, oh, I know I need to improve on this one, and maybe a question mark. I'm not sure how I'm doing on this one. I might have to ask other people how I'm doing this, and so any Xs I need to improve in this strategy, you want to add to your critical relationships and enhancement plan.
Remember, we did that several exercises ago. For any question marks that you have, include actions. So what are you going to do to get the information that you need that's going to help you understand what level of skill you need? And you know what? For all those check marks that you're giving yourself, give yourself a pat on the back for those because it means you're doing something right.
Take a few moments to work on this.
