MUR
The following blog has been contributed by Marcus – Editor, founder, and dating coach for men at MarcusNeo.Com. Unlikely bedmates, Marcus and FocusU share one common interest. It’s our passion for enabling action through inspired frameworks. His methods and courses continue to enable thousands of men find their most confident selves by honing their relationship management skills. And, in the following article, he shares insights on how leaders, across industries, can benefit from effective relationship management skills.
What’s Relationship Management?
As the name suggests, relationship management is the art of managing the relations in your life. It essentially means maintaining excellent and positive relationships between the organisation and its clients in a purely business sense. And yet, relationship management goes even further. It envelops maintaining positive relationships with everyone in your life.
The Role of Relationship Management in Leadership
Relationships play a crucial role in leadership. Any great leader will use connections to work together and influence others to achieve business goals. Without fostering proper relationships, a leader won’t be able to build a shared vision together.
Relationship management is an essential aspect of team building. Without being able to communicate and gain the trust of the team, a leader won’t be able to build an effective unit.
Here are some essential relationship management skills that can help leaders:
1. Assertive Communication
An important aspect of relationship management is assertive communication. It is the ability to communicate and express your thoughts, feelings, and opinions. For a leader to effectively lead their team, assertive communications becomes indispensable. And often, what separates a good leader from a great one is the ability to get their point across without putting down the other person’s feelings and opinions.
2. Decision Making
Effective decision making remains synonymous with both – efficient relationship management, and effective leadership. Incorrect, or haphazardly taken decisions can negatively affect a relationship. Similarly, poor decision making can lead teams towards disastrous results.
No matter what you try to do, it’s difficult to please everyone. And a crucial aspect of decision-making is winning people over when it comes to decisions they don’t agree with. Conversely, those good at relationship management can make effective decisions, that translate into outstanding leadership. Thus, effective decision making and leadership go hand in hand.
3. Adaptability
A crucial relationship management skill is adaptability. Of course, relationships aren’t always smooth sailing. There’s bound to be ups and downs. And, that’s where adaptability comes into the equation. Being able to adapt to different people and knowing how to get the best out of them, is crucial to effective relationship management.
It’s essential for leaders to be able to adapt to different situations and personalities, as well. From external vendors, stakeholders. to the diverse voices within a team – a leader has to manage multiple voices. And, adaptability is a must have leadership skill.
4. Problem Solving
Relationships aren’t without their problems, and a vital part of relationship management is problem-solving. Problem-solving requires analytical skills that are also an essential component of leadership.
Advantages of Relationship Management for Leaders
Leaders that have effective relationship management skills experience several benefits. These benefits include:
- A higher level of trust among the team and other stakeholders
- Speedy Implementation of different strategies
- Helping foster an innovative culture
- Lower levels of employee turnover
Why Do People Associate Good Relationship Management Skills With Leadership?
It’s quite clear that relationship management skills are typically associated with high levels of leadership. That’s simply because a skills considered necessary for relationship management also translate into effective leadership. Leaders need to find ways to inspire people and motivate them. To effectively inspire people, leaders need to tap into their individual values.
A good leader has to ensure that the entire team shares a collective vision of working towards achieving business goals. Being able to understand people and get the best out of them is an essential leadership role. A leader won’t be able to get the best out of their team without fostering a bond of trust. It’s essential to use skills like empathy and emotional intelligence to help build and maintain such bonds.
Conclusion
Relationship management is a broad subject that dominates almost every aspect of a person’s life. Many of the skills that are effective in relationship management also translate to great leadership skills. Leaders with effective relationship management skills can get the best out of their employees and ensure that they always work towards a shared vision.
