Relationship management becomes more critical as you seize more professional responsibility. You need skills to inspire, build bonds, control, and help others. All the while, you need to be ready to manage conflict, change, and build teamwork.
I believe it is possible to build better relationships one step at a time. This is achieved by focusing on six subjects in the Relationship Management domain of Emotional Intelligence:
- Inspire
- Impact
- Evolve
- Initiate change
- Manage conflict
- Establish teams and collaboration
Let’s look for some opinions about how to be successful in each of these domains.
- Inspiration often starts with a time of silent reflection about nagging questions. In examining feelings that include confusion, anxiety, and passion, a vision often becomes clear, helping to understand the larger purpose or mission. For inspiration to indeed happen, the picture has to be spelled out to others correctly. In this way, others hopefully will “buy into” the plan and ideas. Individuals who inspire others:
• Draw on the accumulated wisdom of others
• Take others to look at the reality and the perfect vision
• Connect with people’s emotional cores as well as intellectually.
- Impact is one of the three components of a democratic leader. Conflict management and teamwork are the other two ingredients and will be discussed later. Impact also needs efficiently handling others’ emotions. You may have been in circumstances where you impacted someone’s mood, or she/he affected your mood. Individuals with a high level of influence:
• Skillfully win people over by networking with them, listening, etc.
• Properly fine-tune what they are going to say to engage the listener
• Willingly use a variety of approaches to building support and consensus.
- Supporting others evolve others is a skill needed by leaders who supervise others and are liable for employee growth in their department or division. People with a high level in developing others:
• Reward and acknowledge people’s accomplishments and strengths.
• Offer valuable feedback and precisely target needs for further growth.
• Coach, mentor, and offer tasks that stimulate and foster a person’s skills.
- Launching change or being a change catalyst requires logical modeling of the behaviors you want to see in others. You start by questioning the cultural norms and emotional reality underlying daily activities and actions. How others feel about the change process needs to be viewed. People who are easily able to initiate change:
• Understand the need for change
• Challenge the status quo
• Make compelling arguments for reform
• Find efficient ways to overcome barriers to change.
- Managing conflict needs understanding different perspectives and finding a standard solution that everyone can endorse. It requires self-control and good listening skills. Individuals who have good conflict management skills:
• Manage difficult people and tense situations tactfully
• Spot possible conflict and help de-escalate the situation
• Promote open discussion
• Work for win-win solutions.
- Collaboration and teamwork need helpfulness, respect, and cooperation.
Both home and work are happier when these conditions are met. When teams work well, turnover and desertion decline, and productivity increases. Individuals who have collaboration skills and strong teamwork:
• Draw all members into productive participation
• Build commitment and team identity
• Defend the group and share credit.
It is now known that emotions are infectious. Also, every encounter with another individual can be anywhere on a continuum from emotionally toxic to sustaining.
In summary, to enhance your relationship management skills, you want people to attract to you rather than against you or away. To have excellent relationship management skills, you need to employ the below five tips:
- Develop honest, open, long-term relationships.
- Show respect to others and have self-respect, especially if you are responsible for their development.
- Have good communication skills, including assertiveness, listening, and conflict management
- Know what a change process entails, and be willing to lead individuals through it.
- Be a reliable team member and encourage collaboration.
Being an effective leader not only makes you look good, but it also enhances the skills of those you manage and makes them look good. That is a “win-win” for everyone.
