LEADERSHIP
Leaders who build strong career relationships earn more trust and achieve better results Kim Harrison, Cutting Edge
Employee engagement, experience, satisfaction; employee manager feedback; and virtual, remote meetings and workplace relationships. Even in this digital age, the most important deciding factor in your career journey is to remember that leaders who build strong career relationships earn more trust and achieve better results with all their stakeholders. This also applies to communication leaders themselves and to the advice they may give as respected advisers to their organizational executives. One of the most respected leaders in our time is Leon Panetta, who said in 2021: “It is human relationships that determine whether or not you’re going to be successful” – Leon Panetta, former US Secretary of Defense, CIA Director, White House Chief of Staff, and Member of the US House of Representatives, stated on 21 January 2021 during a media interview. Panetta says our relationships with other people are such a vital part of our lives. During this time of stress for all of us, it is vital we reach out consistently to our friends, family, and colleagues – our personal stakeholders. And we should be reaching out to our business colleagues also – internally within our organization and externally as well. This is even more important during times of massive societal stress as we experience in the current pandemic. Speaking of relationships, let’s consider the Public Relations Society of America’s current definition of public relations: “Public relations are a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” This definition strongly corresponds to Leon Panetta’s quote, above, that maintaining good human relationships is key to success. Organizations consist of one or more people, and publics consist of one or more people, so Panetta’s quote 28 ROTOWORLD® ISSUE 1 • 2022
applies to the vital role of relating to people in our society. And what is the foundation for building good relationships? It’s good communication, of course. Great business leaders focus on mastering relationships “Mastering personal relationships that build trust and create a collaborative work environment is central to leadership effectiveness in the digital economy. This skill set distinguishes great leaders from merely good ones, based on my interviews with C-suite executives in companies around the world.” This important observation was made by Dr. Douglas Ready from the MIT Sloan School of Management in an article published in the MIT Strategic Management Review. Ready went on to say: “As our work world becomes more virtual and our business models more digital, the key determinant of sustainable success is less about the power of a company’s algorithms than it is about the efficacy of the relationships we forge”. Positive relationships are the most important element of trust in leaders If you have direct reports, your relationships with them require their trust in you. Three fundamentals are often the foundation of workplace trust, is the conclusion of experts Jack Zenger & Joseph Folkman in a 2019 Harvard Business Review article, after analyzing 360-degree assessments of 87,000 leaders: 1. Positive relationships. Trust is in part based on the extent to which a leader can create positive relationships with other people and groups. To instill trust a leader must: • Stay in touch on the issues and concerns of others
