Relational intelligence is a critical quality for modern business leaders. This term refers to your ability to connect with other people and build authentic relationships based on trust. To accomplish this requires having a high degree of empathy and the emotional intelligence to understand both your own and others’ values, interests, motivations, and needs. Once you’re able to develop this knowledge, you can use it to guide your behavior and decision-making.
There are numerous benefits to developing a high relational intelligence as a business leader. Let’s take a closer look at what makes this skill so valuable and how you can develop it to become a more effective leader in your business.
Why is relational intelligence important for business leaders?
Most business leaders today are aware of the benefits that come from having a well-developed emotional intelligence. This kind of soft skill is increasingly becoming a must-have for modern managers and executives, allowing them to unlock the full potential of their teams while minimizing turnover and enhancing employee loyalty.
The advantages of a high relational intelligence are similar, and indeed these are very complementary skill sets to develop. People leaders aren’t the only ones who can benefit from developing this skill, either. Anyone whose work depends on developing relationships with others, from recruiters to sales representatives or customer service agents, can improve their performance by heightening their relational intelligence.
Some of the specific benefits of high relational intelligence for business leaders include:
- Enhanced communication – By fully understanding the needs and perspective of your audience, you can foster more transparent communication, be more clear with expectations, and reduce the risk of misunderstandings. This translates to more effective overall communication and better alignment across the team.
- Increased employee engagement – Employees are more invested in the workplace when their leaders understand their strengths, fears, and motivations. Because of this, leaders with high relational intelligence often see boosted morale, enhanced collaboration, and increased productivity from their fully engaged teams.
- Faster, more effective conflict resolution – Relational intelligence equips leaders to better navigate conflicts and bring them to a resolution that satisfies all parties involved. It enables you to better understand both sides and bring disparate perspectives together behind a single solution, mediating any disputes that arise along the way.
- Better decision-making – With strong relational intelligence, leaders are better able to predict the human impact of their decisions. This encourages a more holistic approach to business decision-making, paving the way for decisions that are both strategically sound and ethically responsible.
- Stronger organizational cultures – Leaders establish the foundation of the company culture, but an organization’s employees are the key figures who make it a reality. When leaders have strong relational intelligence, they’re able to not just communicate their ideal culture more effectively, but are also more likely to generate excitement and commitment to that culture from the team.
Key skills for developing relational intelligence
We’ve mentioned already that emotional intelligence is a closely related skill set to relational intelligence. There are some other soft skills that leaders can hone to help them develop stronger relational intelligence, including:
Communication
This goes beyond a leader’s ability to clearly express their vision and expectations for reports, though that’s certainly a part of it. Active listening is equally critical, ensuring that the people you engage with in the workplace feel heard and like their voice is valued. Finally, it means understanding nonverbal communication like body language and facial expressions, which allow you to better understand the other person’s emotions and respond appropriately to them.
Empathy
Empathy enables people to see situations from other people’s perspective, allowing them to fully understand their concerns, emotions, and what drives their actions and decisions. This makes it a core component of relational intelligence, as well. Empathetic leaders are able to recognize and manage their own emotional responses, as well as having a clearer understanding of the emotions of others, facilitating better communication, more effective conflict resolution, and stronger workplace relationships that are based in trust.
Authenticity and transparency
Trust is a key cornerstone of any healthy workplace, and it’s a critical ingredient of a relationally intelligent leadership approach, as well. Learning how to express your values and message in an authentic way is an important early step in developing this type of intelligence. Along with this, practicing transparency in your communication helps to build more trust between leadership and employees, paving the way for a workplace culture that is based in empathy and mutual understanding and respect.
Cultural and social awareness
An individual’s cultural background and identity has a significant influence on how they interact with other people and the world at large. The same goes for the social dynamics within the workplace and in the community where your business is based. By staying open-minded and educating yourself about the cultural and social norms common to your team, you can better develop authentic, trust-based relationships.
Self-awareness and self-reflection
Before you can fully understand other people’s emotions and motivations, you need to first understand your own. Self-awareness enables continuous improvement because you’re able to better learn from past interactions and grow from your experiences.
Steps to improve your relational intelligence
Now that you understand the benefits of relational intelligence and the key skills required to develop it, the next logical question is: how do you develop this skill? Here are some strategies and steps that you can employ.
1. Conduct a self-assessment.
We mentioned above that understanding your own strengths, weaknesses, and emotions is the foundation of relational intelligence. Targeted self-assessment is the best way to increase your self-awareness to support this learning. Practice mindfulness during workplace interactions to become more aware of your thoughts and emotions. Along with this, regularly reflect on your interactions and how your emotions influenced them.
2. Solicit feedback from reports and coworkers.
It isn’t always easy to see our own actions clearly, and even the most self-aware leader can have blind spots if they never seek outside input. Proactively seeking out feedback helps to develop deeper self-awareness by filling in these blind spots and ensuring unconscious biases aren’t coloring your perception.
3. Get the input of a coach or mentor.
Mentors and coaches are another excellent source of feedback about your own behavior and emotions, for one thing. They can also help you better identify and address your weaknesses and biases, and can share strategies they’ve found successful for developing or improving skill sets related to relational intelligence.
4. Practice active listening and empathy.
Just like with technical skills, soft skills can’t simply be developed in a vacuum. They must be put into practice on a day-to-day basis, allowing you to integrate them fully into your leadership approach. Consciously practice active listening whenever you’re interacting with coworkers, reports, or clients in the workplace by focusing completely on the speaker, making eye contact, and allowing them to finish speaking before you make a conclusion or jump in with your own thoughts. Make it your goal to understand not just what the other person is saying, but also the emotions and motivations behind their words, and ask open-ended questions to encourage sharing and deepen your understanding.
5. Embrace diversity and break down your unconscious biases.
Approaching cultural differences with curiosity rather than judgment keeps your mind open to them, allowing you to better understand where people from that background are coming from. When you educate yourself about different cultures, customs, and social norms, you can better adapt your actions and words to be more respectful of and inclusive for all individuals you engage with as a professional.
6. Build trust through honesty and reliability.
Trust, like respect, is something that must be earned and cultivated. Communicating openly and honestly, even when you’re discussing difficult topics, is the first step to building trust within your team. Leaders also need to be consistent with their expectations, actions, and words, and follow-through on commitments or promises they make. By showing integrity in all of your interactions, you will be rewarded with strong trust bonds that, in turn, make your team stronger overall.
7. Continuous learning.
Nobody should expect to get a new skill perfect on their first attempt, and this is just as true of soft skills as it is of technical capabilities. Set aside time for regular reflection to evaluate your progress and stay open to changing your approach based on what you learn from this self-study. In addition to reflecting on your own experiences, seek out other sources of learning like workshops, courses, books, or coaching. The bottom line is that relational intelligence is not a static quality. It requires ongoing development and adaptation. By putting in that work, you’ll be rewarded with a more cohesive, more committed team.
