4 Strategies to Develop a Relational Leadership Style and Lead Your Team to Success
Is your leadership style killing off your team? Mine was!
Do you remember the first time your leadership style was critiqued?
Boy, I do! I was shocked.
I was the manager of a call center that handled some of the most prestigious companies in our region. My boss and I were chatting about work over coffee when he said, “You know Cindy, you are terrific at meeting corporate goals, but sometimes you leave a body count in the wake of your success. You are so determined to meet the goals that you forget it takes people to help you achieve them.”
I was taken by surprise! I am extremely relational along with being goal driven, but I was not incorporating them together.
From that day forward, I was intent on developing my leadership style as a relational leader.
What is a relational leader?
A relational leadership style builds rapport in a team in a way that maximizes everyone’s potential. It creates synergy among team members to achieve clear set goals.
It is being an influencer, but in a way that considers the needs and strengths of everyone on the team.
I learned the hard way that to operate in this leadership style, I first had to understand who I was and how I lead. These became the cornerstones for building a strong team.
Leading without the “relational” factor will cost you!
Many leaders believe their employees are hired to do a job and thus the relational element is not necessary.
Gallup poll results indicate that only 34% of employees are actively engaged in their work. Think about your staff. Imagine only 34% of them engaging in their current position.
Gallup continued: “What they (employees) want most is a great boss who cares about their development, and a company that focuses on and develops their strengths.”
They want a relational leader.
Without this key factor in your leadership toolbox, a negative domino effect is created in two ways.
First, it can have a negative impact on your career. You may be hitting every current goal, but when there is a body count of unhappy, burnt-out team members, then you will experience underperformance. The backlash of turnovers—losing well-trained, qualified people—will reflect on your leadership ability.
Secondly, it can affect your profitability. Whether your employees are not performing at their maximum capacity, you are experiencing communication difficulties within your team, or your bottom line is shrinking, it is time to reassess. Ask yourself what is missing.
The willingness to develop a relational leadership style, to move from a good leader to a great leader, is a game changer for everyone within the realm of your responsibility. Developing a team who functions at a high level equates to success, and success adds to your bottom line.
Every leader has an ah-ha moment like I had. It is a mindset change. It is the moment when you realize that you could have had greater success by operating as a relational leader.
It is asking yourself why you lead and how you can do it better for the sake of the team.
Here are four strategies to develop a relational leadership style.
Strategy 1: Understand Your Leadership Style
There are many free tools online that assess your personality and your leadership style. Myers-Briggs is the one I have used systematically over the years.
All my team takes this test when they are hired, including my interns and volunteer staff. It provides a greater understanding of the team, and the information needed to understand team members’ individual capacities. When used properly, this information can strengthen the whole team.
I also use the free test on the 16 Personalities website. This test provides keys to unlock understanding of a person’s core. This in turn provides optimum performance and a greater engagement for each team member.
There are four personality preferences discussed at 16 Personalities. The assessment helps you to understand the four key elements and how they operate.
1) Which environment saps your energy and which one recharges you?
(Extravert – E or Introvert – I)
2) How do you process incoming information?
(Sensing – S or Intuition – N)
3) What is your go to decision process?
(Thinking – T or Feeling – F)
4) What structure do you use in dealing with the outside world?
(Judging – J or Perceiving – P)
Do you know how your leadership style operate within your personality preferences? If not, it is time to find out. Do not forget: You are your greatest investment!
Remember my story about the body count? I was missing the ability to integrate my relational preference (E – excited and energized by being with the people I lead) with the decision process (T – driven to accomplish the best results) in my leadership style. This inability limited me to achieving bottom line goals at any cost.
With mentoring and additional training, I was able to adjust, leading to a promotion and a greater number of employees to lead.
Strategy 2: Understand Your Team
First, let me define what I mean by your team.
Your team is your direct reports, the ones responsible for assisting you in accomplishing your set goals. When I was a director, I had managers located across the country. They were my direct reports—my team.
As leaders, we hire based on the right education and experience, believing those are enough to fill the position. Often, we forget to place equal importance on a person’s ability to work within the team dynamics.
My worst hire cost my team and our company profoundly. We hired a person who had the experience and training. They made it through multiple interviews with all the right answers.
Once they were hired, we realized the person lacked the interpersonal skills needed to work in a team environment. Other team members left, costing the company valuable, well-trained people.
It took us over a year to fully recover from this one misstep in hiring.
As I stated earlier, understanding how each person in the team functions is critical. Another key component to doing this using a relational leadership style is assisting the team in understanding how they function individually, and how the others also operate. This enables the team to draw the best from one another.
One of my team members was extremely detailed and needed to process all options (the sensing element) before they could talk through a scenario. For people like myself who are intuitive,this process can be frustrating.
It took time before I understood the necessity and value of this team member’s process. I learned to give them space to process the options and lay out the details and possible outcomes.
This was win-win for our team! The uniqueness of these personality styles provided freedom for the employee to maximize their strength of processing information, which engaged them in the team process. For me as a team leader, this maximized my strength in making decisions clear-cut.
Within this initial process, you will begin to foster an awareness of each person and the way they interact with others, process information, and make decisions. You will understand the preferences of each employee and identify those who can provide the structure for each team member to reach optimal capacity.
Strategy 3: Identify What is Missing in Your Team
Self-duplication is a common mistake of any leadership style. Leaders tend to build teams that function like they do, therefore limiting their ability to serve the overall company goals.
In the organization I was a part of, the CEO was brilliant but an extreme introvert. All except one of his management team members were brilliant introverts. The issue was not the introvert factor; it was the lack of diversity in the team’s ability to interact with the general population.
In addition, a high percentage of employees within the organization were introverts. The kicker was that their customer base was mainly the outside public. Do you see the challenge?
Being an introvert or an extravert is simply a preference in the way you recharge, whether you prefer to do that being alone or with others. The bigger perspective is your goals and what type of education, experience, and personality you need to accomplish them.
The first two, education and experience, are relatively easy to identify. Identifying the personality preferences of your team and how they fit into your organization takes additional steps.
My new eBook, Relational Leadership, helps you learn the who, what, where, how, and why of team members. Download it for free here.
Over the years, I have interviewed people for hire where everything seemed perfect, but my gut said “No!” After several interviews, including interviewing with my team, the applicants excelled in every way, but I could not pull the trigger and hire them. You must be confident as you step back and wait for the right person, even if you cannot articulate why.
The yes of hiring must meet all of your clearly defined elements in order to maximize your team.
Strategy 4: Develop Your Team
A relational leadership style invests in team members from the moment they are hired. It does not matter how long you have been with them—you can always fine-tune relationally.
Remember, fine-tuning leads to greater success. Taking it up a notch does not have to be drastic. Take small steps.
The key is CEC: Communicate, Encourage, and Connect.
If you have not downloaded the Relational Leadership eBook, do it now. It has the details and action steps needed to develop this leaderships style with the skills you need to take your team to the next level.
As leaders, we have tried many of the latest leadership fads, but there is one that always returns: the relational leadership style.
People are built for relationship and want to engage with others. Engagement provides a greater sense of accomplishment and commitment as a whole.
Synergy within your team provides the greatest ability to thrive, even in hard times. The team that can value you as a leader, as well as its other members, can do the impossible together—as one!
How do you plan to implement these four strategies to develop your relational leadership style? Comment below with your insights.
Let’s get the conversation started!
Remember, you are the best investment you can make!
If you want to find your passion AND the why behind it, sign up for my 6-week online course, Compelled to Change.
In this class, you will learn practical and repeatable strategies to accomplish your dreams and be unstoppable!
Abundant Blessings, Cindy
Cindy Stewart has a passion for people and helping them connect to their life purpose, discover their passions, and live their dreams. Cindy’s latest book, God’s Dream for Your Life, brings clarity to your purpose while unlocking vision of what is possible in the natural and the supernatural. She is an itinerant speaker, an executive coach, and hosts a weekly podcast on Charisma Podcast Network. Along with her husband, Chuck, they lead The Gathering Apostolic Center in Tarpon Springs, FL.
Please email Cindy with any questions or comments to cindystewartauthor@gmail.com. She’d love to hear from you.
Remember, you are the best investment you can make.