Relationship Management: The Key To Achieve It All

What is relationship management?

As human beings, we are all connected to other people through relationships with our partners, family, friends, colleagues, employees or bosses. Essentially, these will majorly affect us if they are not managed well. Having a fight with our spouse, a message seen by our friend but no response from them or a harsh remark from our boss can completely ruin our day. Whereas, having a good conversation with our loved ones will alleviate our moods and make us feel heard instantly.

The context boils down to the term Relationship management. As the name suggests, it is our ability to use our awareness of our own emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully. Solid relationships are the result of how we understand people, how we treat them and the history we share. It is also the product of the quality, depth and time we spend interacting with another person.

Importance of relationship management

The benefits of relationship management are vast and undeniable. The stronger the connection we have with someone, the easier it is to get our points cross. Similarly, relationship management is absolutely crucial for the success of an organisation as some of the most challenging and stressful situations people face are at work.

The following shows the advantages of relationship management in the workplace:

• Strengthen new and existing relationships with customers and business partners

• Increase brand’s loyalty, reputation, profitability and greater efficiencies

• Create a joyful environment for employees to work, be creative and showcase their skills

• Help in individual career growth and open career opportunities

• Manage the conflicts at work with direct, yet constructive conversation

Relationship management and effective leadership

Goleman (2019) considers the link between effective relationship management and effective leadership to be apparent and intuitive as no leader is an island and their success is the collective efforts of the team members.

Relationship management and getting promoted

At some points in our career journey, some of us may get passed over the promotion, despite hitting or succeeding at our performance goals. The underlying reasons can be due to our lack of focus on building relationships with other co-workers, employees and seniors at work.

To get ourselves up for success, Barnard-Bahn (2021) suggests the following five actions to strengthen our relationships and put us on the path to promotion:

1/ Know what makes us great at our job — and share our gift with other

Identify skills that set us apart and find a friendly way to share our gifts with others to build relationships and add value to the team.

2/ Know what makes us great at our job — and share our gift with other

Identify skills that set us apart and find a friendly way to share our gifts with others to build relationships and add value to the team.

3/ Understand how others see us — and shift our perspective from “me” to “we.”

Find opportunities to get feedback on how we show up to others. This will help us become aware of our behaviour and avoid blind spots in self-awareness.

4/ Mentor others to develop our leadership skills

We learn best when we are teaching others. Take the earliest opportunities to lead others through volunteering to help a person within or outside our business unit.

5/ Learn how to work productively with personalities we find difficult

Identify early the specific personalities and characteristics that are challenging us and develop strategies for working effectively with them.

6/ Set healthy boundaries in our work relationships

Knowing which things to say no to will ultimately help us advance and take on more responsibilities. Be judicious, diplomatic and learn to delegate.

Relationship management and emotional contagion

One very important concept of relationship management is emotional contagion. This is the phenomenon of emotions spreading from one person to another, often without any awareness that it is taking place. For instance, when someone smiles happily around others, those around them are more likely to smile and feel happy.

To manage a team more effectively, leaders need to:

• Know how to use emotional contagion to energise the team and get them moving in the right direction.

• Be aware that at times teams will feel and show negative feelings.

• Consciously choose and avoid catching negative emotions that can bring them down.

• Express positive emotions such as gratitude, pride, optimism and passion to lift the moods and spirits of staff.

Relationship management strategies

In the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 co-written by Dr Travis Bradberry & Dr Jean Greaves (2009), the authors introduced 17 strategies to help us work on what’s critical to making relationships work.

Be open and be curious

Being open means sharing information about ourselves with others. While it’s up to us to choose how open we are and what we share, the benefit of opening is that when people know more about ourselves, there’s less room for them to misinterpret us.

We also need to be interested in the other person’s story as well. Asking open-up questions, not only helps us manage the relationship, but the other person will also appreciate the interest shown in her or him.

Enhance our natural communication style

Our communication styles such as direct or indirect, comfortable or serious, entertaining, discreet, controlled, chatty, intense, cool, curious or intrusive shape our relationships. Figuring out the upsides and even downsides of our way of communicating with others and improve them.

Avoid giving mixed signals

When we talk to someone, we may confuse and frustrate others when we say one thing and our body or tone say another. Over time, this confusion will cause communication issues that will affect our relationships. To solve the mixed signal issue, use our self-awareness skills to identify our emotions, and use our self-management skills to decide which feelings to express and how to express them.

Remember the little things that pack a punch

These days, in both personal and work-related relationships, there are far too few “please”, “thank you”, and “sorry” being expressed. If we don’t use these phrases often due to lack of time or habit, find a way to incorporate more of them into our relationships.

Take feedback well

Feedback exists to help us improve in ways that we perhaps cannot see on our own. To receive feedback well, consider the source of our feedback, and turn on our social awareness skills to listen and really hear what is being said. Ask clarifying questions and ask for examples to better understand the person’s perspective.

Build trust

Trust is something that takes time to build, can be lost in seconds and maybe our most important and most difficult objective in managing our relationships. To build trust, use our self-awareness and self-management skills to be the first to lay some of ourselves on the line and share parts of ourselves at a time. Develop trust via consistency in words, actions and behaviour over time and reliability in following through on the agreements of the relationship.

Have an “open-door” policy

Increasing our accessibility can improve our relationships and literally open the door to communication, even if it’s virtual (by email or phone). People will feel valued and respected because of the time we’re giving them. Just keep in mind that we don’t need to stretch ourselves too thin by being there for everyone at any time, simply communicate our policy and then stick to it.

Only get mad on purpose

Anger, if managed properly and used purposefully, the result can enhance our relationships. To master the skill, use our self-awareness and self-management to define our varying degrees of anger and determine when we should show our anger based on the criterion, then use our social awareness to think about the other people involved and their responses. Doing these steps will eventually improve the relationships.

Don’t avoid the inevitable

If we have to work with a person whom we don’t wish to team up with: Do not avoid him or her or the situation. Instead, accept the fact and make the choice to use our EQ skills to move forward with the person. We watch our emotions and make decisions about how to manage those emotions, next conjure up our social awareness skills to put ourselves in the person’s shoes and gradually come to an agreement on how to accomplish the shared goals.

Acknowledge the other person’s feelings

Everyone has a right to experience feelings, even if we might not feel the same way. We don’t have to agree with the way people are feeling, but we do have to recognise those feelings as legitimate and respect them.

Complement the person’s emotions or situation

The complementary response always say we recognise what the other person feels and we think it’s important. To practice complementing emotions in our relationships, get ready ourselves for the people in our closest relationships – either at work or home. Notice their moods and show our care about what they are going through.

When we care, show it

There are people who do great work around us every day. When we care, show it. Things as simple as greeting cards or something else inexpensive, yet meaningful, that sums up how we feel are all we need to make an impact and strengthen a relationship.

Explain our decisions, don’t just make them

Instead of making a change and expecting others to just accept it, take some times to explain the why behind the decision, including alternatives, and why the final choice makes sense. Transparency and openness also make people feel like they are trusted, respected, and connected – instead of being told what to do and kept it in the dark.

Make our feedback direct and constructive

Giving feedback is a relationship-building event that requires all four EQ skills to be effective. First, use our self-awareness skills to identify our feelings about the feedback. Next, use our self-management skills to decide what we’ll do with the information we just learned about ourselves. Then, use our social awareness skills to think of the person who is receiving feedback. Focus on giving constructive feedback that shares information and offers solutions for change. Finally, ask the person for their thoughts, and thank the person for their willingness to consider our suggestions.

Align our intention with our impact

To align our words and actions with our intent, we need to use our social awareness and self-management skills to observe the situation and the people in it, think before we speak or act, and make an appropriate and sensitive response.

Offer a “fix-it” statement during a broken conversation

Broken conversations are when there are disagreements and confusion. In such cases, we need to step back, quickly assess the situation, let go of blame and focus on the repair. Use our social awareness skills to see what we are contributing to the situation; use self-management to put our tendencies aside and choose the high road and social awareness skills to identify what the other person brought to the table or feels.

Tackle a tough conversation

Tough conversation is inevitable. Though EQ skills can’t make these conversations disappear, acquiring some new skills can make these conversations a lot easier to navigate without ruining the relationship.

• Start with agreement on common ground we would like to share.

• Ask and focus on understanding the other person’s view.

• Use our self-management skills to silence our inner voice and direct our attention to the person in front of us, instead of defending ourselves.

• Describe our discomfort, thoughts, ideas and the reasons behind our thought process to help the other person understand our perspectives.

• Seek the common ground again and move the conversation forward, even if there’s disagreement.

• Check progress frequently and ask the other person if they are satisfied and keep in touch as we move forward.

References

Annette, T 2018, Leadership and Relationship: Why ‘We’ Matters More Than ‘I’, CQ Net – Management Skills for Everyone, available at <https://www.ckju.net/en/dossier/leadership-relationship-why-we-matters-more-i>.

Brian, T 2020, Relationship Management: The Key to Achieving It All, Forbes, available at <https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescoachescouncil/2020/03/31/relationship-management-the-key-to-achieving-it-all/>.

Barnard-Bahn, A 2021, Promotions Aren’t Just About Your Skills — They’re About Your Relationships, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2021/02/promotions-arent-just-about-your-skills-theyre-about-your-relationships>.

Goleman, D 2020, Why Emotional Intelligence Is Key to Leading Through COVID-19, Korn Ferry, available at <https://www.kornferry.com/insights/this-week-in-leadership/emotional-intelligence-skills-coronavirus-leadership>.

Goleman, D 2019, The Emotionally Intelligent Leader, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, Massachusetts.

Goleman, D 2020, The Science of Emotional Intelligence, Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris, Podcast Episode 307, available at <https://radiopublic.com/ten-percent-happier-with-dan-harrWwE9m8/s1!ef77a>.

Kenton, W 2022, Relationship Management, Investopedia, available at <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/relationship-management.asp>.

Klassen Performance Group 2023, Relationship Management, Klassen Performance Group, available at <https://klassenperformancegroup.com/relationship-management/#:~:text=One%20very%20important%20concept%20of,that%20it%20is%20taking%20place>.