Are you building relationships with your team?

One key factors that many leaders miss when building and developing teams is cultivating relationships with their people.  I know from personal experience that missing this key factor can bring your team to a plateau and keep you from building momentum that can take you and your team to the next level.  Many leaders simply feel they can grow their business simply because they are in the “position” of leadership.  I made this mistake as well, they think they can simply tell the team what to do and where they need to go and who they need to become simply because of their “authority” as the “leader”. Well I’m sure we have all experienced this at some point in our lives on the receiving end and know that when we really had no relationship with our boss or leader we really didn’t seem to care as much about what they told us to do.  We didn’t really want to follow, we just simply did because they were the boss. Maybe even the second they left the room we did the exact opposite of what they asked of us. That is a mistake many of us new to leadership or even seasoned pros can sometimes forget.  If we want people to do business with us or follow us they need to like and trust us.  If we never attempt to build a relationship with our team it will be hard to lead them as effectively.

A simple thing we can all do is try and focus on building, even if they are small, relationships with our team.  It can be as simple as getting to know their hobbies, asking about their family, learning their kids names, etc. If we are able to start building a relationship with people and have the position of leadership or we are in charge our team will be much more likely to get to the next level.  It’s one thing for our team to do what we suggest or listen to our advice because we are the boss, it is a whole other level when they listen to us because they want to because of the relationship we have built with them.  In my experience simply by trying to develop the relationship or having small talk with your team, they will bring up things they are struggling with or that they need help on.  If you never attempt to create that relationship they might never feel comfortable asking you questions or bringing up problems to you.  They may feel you are to busy or that you view them as unimportant enough to talk to and that they really play no key role in the team.  It becomes very hard to empower or develop leaders in your team if there is no relationship with them and your team will remain at a plateau.

Many of us leaders are so focused on results and production that we never take the time to get to know our team and help them develop into the leaders they could be.  The funny part is, by focusing on relationship building and empowering your team we are able to actually up production by developing our team.  They get better and produce more and want to do better because they like you as the leader and want you to succeed just as much as themselves!  People always want people they like to succeed, so if we are neglecting the key ingredient of building relationships in our team, we may never reach as high of levels of success as we could.  Don’t make the same mistake I did for many years by ignoring the people and relationship side of your business, you will be surprised how fast you can turn around some of your least productive people in your team by simply developing a relationship and environment that they can grow and prosper in!

Wishing you Health and Prosperity – Mike MacDonald