EFFECTIVE RELATIONAL LEADERSHIP By Lisa Richardson What is relational leadership all about? My short answer is relational leadership is everything that creates a human relation between leader and employee. If our objective is to ensure our employees realise their full potential and thereby contribute optimally to achieving the company’s targets, it is of ultimate importance that the relations contribute to a culture that supports and promotes development. LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOUR AFFECTS CULTURE As leader, your behaviour not only plays a role in your human relationships with your employees. It also plays a critical role in the company culture. Culture is important to employee engagement. And employee engagement has a significant effect on results. But which culture is the right culture? A recent study at Google showed that a critical difference between teams with a high performance level versus teams with a low performance level is the feeling of “psychological safety”. Psychological safety can be defined as a cultural norm that says it is okay that you are part of the team, no matter what your flaws and shortcomings may be. The feeling of being 100% accepted will enable you to spend your energy on developing your potential and creating results rather than hiding your weaknesses. Intuitively, it also makes sense that, if a team is to be able to realise its full potential, all strengths and weaknesses need to be brought out into the open. A team or organisation with a high degree of psychological safety is able to use the team’s resources more efficiently, as they can assign the right person to a task without having to consider politics, hierarchy, norms, etc. These teams are also typically better at listening to each other and handling disagreements in a constructive and developing way. WHAT IS GOOD RELATIONAL LEADERSHIP? Good or effective relational leadership must consequently be one that creates a culture of psychological safety and development. At the end of the day, it is the leaders’ behaviour that acknowledges strengths and welcomes weaknesses as development potentials. A leader who is good at relational leadership will typically use methods such as active listening, coaching and appreciation. There is just that small twist that the right behaviour is not always sufficient in itself if it is carried out with the wrong mindset behind it. There is, for example, a difference between using coaching to get an employee to change a specific behaviour right here and now and to support the employee in his or her personal and professional development. Both acts are coaching, but the underlying intentions can be very different. And the results will consequently also be very different. In most cases, the short-term behavioural change will not sustain over time. The mindset underlying the behaviour is critical for your chances of achieving the desired effect. 3
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