Building Strong Relationships as a Leader

As leaders you build the culture of the organization. People look up to you, look to see how you are acting, behaving, and interacting with others. In order to a build a healthy culture - one of openness, transparency, trust, diversity, and genuineness - building strong relationships with key people in the organization is critical. 

In order to build strong relationships a few key skills (often under the umbrella of emotional intelligence) are really important. These include:

• Trust - being open, valuing other people, keeping an open mind from the beginning of the relationship are important ingredients in keeping trust alive. Respecting them, honoring them, showing character, competence, and open communications are key as discussed in Steven M.R. Covey's book The Speed of Trust.
• Availability - having people feel like you have time and attention to give to them not only when there is a fire drill, but also to get to know about what motivates them, what energizes them, and what is important to them.
• Devotion - making feeling like they are important and a priority is a critical skill in developing strong healthy relationships. Working to ensure that you take the time and energy to devote to appreciate, value, and respect their contributions and celebrate their successes can truly help in building rapport and health in the organizations.

Are your relationships strong in the organization? If not what can you begin to do? If yes what can you do more of to continue to enhance the environment?