Print This Article     Email This Article to a Friend       Becoming a "Relational" Leader   An effective leader with poor relational skills is almost a contradiction in terms. Ninety-nine percent of all the good things you'll ever receive in life are going to come through the channel of relationships. Nearly every form of blessing and increase comes as a direct result of relationships with other people. When God wants to get something to you, He does it through the vehicle of relationships. When He wants to encourage you, you don't hear a booming voice from Heaven saying, "be thou encouraged." No, He sends someone to you to put an arm around you and say a few words that turn your day around. That's why the quality of your relationships and your skill in cultivating them has a profound impact on your effectiveness as a leader. Let's examine some of the key attributes and skills of relational leaders. Know Them As Stephen Covey is famous for saying, "We must seek first to understand, before attempting to be understood." That's why a fundamental key to being a strong relational leader is really "knowing" people. The Bible, in Second Corinthians, five, sixteen, instructs us to "know no man after the flesh." What God's wisdom is telling us there is that you don't really know someone if all you know is the outward facade. In other words—seek to understand others. Four hundred years before the birth of Christ, the famous Greek physician, Hippocrates, made a statement about relational leadership that still rings true today: "Many admire. Few know." He was pointing out that in his day, as in ours, the vast majority of relationships never get past a superficial level. But to be an effective relational leader, it is vital that you find ways to know and understand others at a deeper level. How many of the people you are trying to lead do you truly "know?" Openness and Boldness You reap what you sow. It's a biblical principle that applies just as strongly to relationships as it does to any other area of life. One key to building strong relationships is simply being open to them. I know that seems obvious and yet, so many people get hung up at this very point. Some people get so satisfied with a comfortable circle of friends, they close themselves to new opportunities. Many people settle for a level of relational leadership much lower than their potential, simply because of fear. They fail to seek new relationships because of fear of rejection or fear of self-disclosure. The great Minnesotan, James F. Bell, founder of General Mills once said, "Fear is an insidious virus. Given a breeding place in our minds, it will permeate the whole body and eat away our spirit and block the forward path of our endeavors." This echoes a truth we find repeated throughout the Bible. Fear always either paralyzes or prompts avoidance. In either case, you don't make progress in establishing new relationships when fear is allowed to remain in the picture. Persuade Rather Than Force When you're a skilled relational leader, the people who follow you do so because they want to, not because they have to. A leader who must control and coerce won't be leading very long. As General Dwight Eisenhower once said, "You do not lead by hitting people over the head. That's assault, not leadership." Jesus said much the same thing when He said, "He who would be the greatest among you must be the servant of all." The more skillful you are at building strong relationships, the less coercive power you'll need. Malcolm Forbes once said, "You can employ men and hire hands to work 'for' you, but you must win their hearts to have them work 'with' you." Forbes understood that one of the highest and most powerful levels of leadership is attained when you become a relational leader. Relational leaders cause those they lead to desire the stated goal just as strongly as the leader does. They fire those around them with enthusiasm, passion, and commitment. God's Word contains a wealth of insights for building stronger relationships. As you apply these truths, you can't help but grow as a relational leader.
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