RCI Week 17 - Leadership is a Relationship

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It’s hard to believe, but we are nearing the end of our first 4 months of the Resilient Culture Initiative. We will break for the summer before kicking off the next round in September. Which is why this is the perfect opportunity to share some exciting news with you.

As many of you know, a number of the resilience topics we focused on over the last few months drew upon the book I co-authored, Lead Yourself First. Well, I am excited to share with you that in November, I will be releasing my second book, called Leadership is a Relationship.

If you recall back to our second week in the RCI, we talked about how leadership is far more than a position or job title….and that leadership heavily relies upon a person’s ability to influence others.

Just to revisit, you may remember we shared that while leadership researchers have defined leadership in over 200 ways, the definition we have embraced is from General and President Eisenhower: “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do what needs to be done because they want to do it.”

And if getting people to do what needs to be done is about having influence, then the last part of the definition is the qualifier----because they WANT to do it. That immediately strips power, authority, and hierarchy out of the equation, and begs the question…….why do people buy into a leader’s vision?

Our answer is – because of the relationship that the leader has established with members of their team or whoever they are leading. Some leadership models focus on making people feel insecure and pitting people against each other to drive results. The reality is, that approach can deliver outcomes, at least in the short run.

But over the past 23 years of learning and living leadership—from all angles—I actually think that building meaningful relationships will become even more essential than it is today. As AI, machine learning, etc.. continue to expand, the temptation is real: To believe that leadership is primarily about ever-increasing efficiency.

I think it’s important to define the word relationship here. It as a series of ongoing, bi-directional interactions that are driven by how 2 or more people OR groups—think about--- talk to—and treat one another.

While there are a number of different kinds of relationships, ultimately it boils down to “How do you think about me?” How Do I think about you?” How do you talk to me? And how do I talk to you? And…..How do we treat each other?

While people tend to use the phrase “in a relationship” with someone-- that connotes a much more emotionally-close dynamic than what we are talking about here, as it pertains to leadership----and the number of people you are influencing.

So, we see it as people having a relationship with others. And if you have ever heard of “Dunbar’s number”----it holds that on a personal level, we can only really maintain about 150 meaningful contacts.

While there are many different levels of relationships that leaders can have with different sized of groups, what we are going to focus on this week is how having and developing good relationships is a core component of leading other people.

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