Leaders know that strong personal relationships strengthen their business relationships. To build personal relationships, show your people that you care.
If you want to build any kind of serious, lasting relationship with your people, you must become a master at communicating with them about all aspects of your organization and their place in it. The only way you can let them know how much you value their contribution is to show them and tell them. Your people may mean more to you than anything else, but if you cannot communicate those feelings to them, then the feelings might as well not exist, because your people will never know.
Live with your people through the good times and bad times. Anyone who has been on this earth very long knows that sometimes the closest relationships with people are built during the bad times. When people are joined in a tough situation, it often builds a closeness and understanding that does not happen in the good times.
Building personal relationships requires “unconditional commitment.” Leaders really know their people, their families, their goals, their abilities, and their dreams.
The most important part of building relationships is really getting to know your people. Can you imagine working with someone every day and not knowing his family, his wife’s name, how many children they have, and so on. A person’s family is a central part of his life, and few things mean more to him than knowing that the importance of his family is recognized. The ups and downs of family life have a strong impact on work performance. If you know the families of your people, you will know when problems occur at home and you will be better able, as a leader, to deal with the effect of those problems on the job.
No matter what organization you are in, your people see themselves as working to improve their own future not yours. If you want to have a successful organization, your people must feel that you are working for them not that they are working for you; and it should really be that way. As a leader, your most important job is helping your people to become the best they can be and reach the absolute peak of their potential. If you are able to do that, your business will take care of itself. No one can fail with a group of independent, motivated, excited and happy people, working hard to reach their own individual goals.
Being right is not good enough; your people must feel and believe that you are right. Your people need the strength and encouragement of a leader, but they can also use the concern and consideration of a friend. It is possible to be both. If you work on building personal relationships, your own enjoyment of work will increase when the group of people you work with are also people you know and like.