Preparing Leaders: Relationships

Happy Monday, Cadre crew. I hope your week starts out well for everybody today. We're still going through the perma model for workplace well being. We talked about positive emotions so far and engagement in the workplace, and today we are on the r of that model, talking about relationships. Now, the research definition for workplace relationships is having the ability to establish and maintain positive, mutual, beneficial relationships with others, characterized by experiences of love and appreciation.

So let's just break that down a little bit. So the first part, having the ability to establish and maintain positive, mutual benefit, beneficial relationships. So having that ability, having to being social with other people, having the social skills in that workplace to have these relationships and then maintaining. A lot of managers and leaders tend to, you know, push for we're going to increase relationships and this is going to have a meeting on that, but they don't follow through. It stops right after that and it doesn't go anywhere.

So that isn't real relationships as well as. As mutual, mutually beneficial. So it's helping one person and helping the other person, and then it's characterized by experiences of love and appreciation. I feel love gets thrown around a lot, but it's a word that means a lot of different things. Not just relate, like not just love in a romantic relationship or with family, but love is really caring for that other person, and that's mutual caring. So relationships involves building strong interpersonal relationships, nurturing a sense of belonging in that workplace, and cultivating positive organizational culture as a whole.

Every relationship builds to the culture as a whole. It's characterized through trust, empathy, and cooperation. So how do you volute relationships in your workplace? How do you see other people? Do you just see them as coworkers and just like that? Or do you want to be more friends with them and really get to know them on a personal level? A lot of people choose different ways. Some people like to get really close to their coworkers since they are spending 40 hours a week. A lot of times other life is spent with these people, so they want to be close.

Other people like to keep it separate. Do you like to just talk about work and that's it? Or talk about what you do on the weekends? So share your, if you have any ideas of share your views of relationships in the workplace, kind of what do you like in the relationships? If nobody has anything, we can move on to leaders and managers, they play a crucial role, not just because they show the relationships between the leader and the direct report, or maybe you are the leader. So it's how do you view relationships with the people below you, or how do you view relationships with your leader or your manager?

But it also sets the tone for all the other relationships within the organization. It's a term called emotional contagion, where the leader exhibits, and they set the level for trust, empathy, understanding, cooperation. They set the tone, and that's going to be passed throughout the organization. And it's really important for them to set the tone on how they most feel comfortable, their authentic style. I've had two leaders in the same place, in my experience, where one was very micromanaging and the other was very laissez faire or just laid back.

So it was at a golf course. So the micro manager, he was very nitpicky about things that you wore, how you treated customers, how you put things in, like in the records, how you collected money. Everything had to be to a t. And he criticized you on it and making sure you did it right. And kind of when he was around, you'd be a little on edge because you felt like everything needed to be perfect. The other was very more laid back, built more on the relationship side. If you walked into his office, hey, Alec, thanks for joining.

If you walked into the laid back manager's office, he would. Last thing he'd be talking about would be work. You know, I was in a fantasy Football league talking about golf at the professional level. Last thing we talked about work. And he really built his managerial style on trusting that you know how to get the work done and that you will get the work done, and then really understanding that he can't be there the entire time. So he had to give you that trust so then you could. So he could leave and not have to work the whole day and let the golf course run on its own.

And it really depends on the worker. Some people loved working under the laid back person. Some people preferred the one that strives for perfection. And I personally like to lay back one. And depends on the environment as well. So if you work in a more high stress environment where the consequences are more dire, that's when the micromanage, the perfection, getting told exactly what to do and how to do it might be more necessary. Because if you mess up, there's high stakes in the end. But in a lower stakes job, such as a golf course that laid back, that might be more better for the culture because it builds that relationship and how the leader supports the direct reports, and then that sets the tone for the relationships within the workers there and also how you treat the customers.

So leaders really set the tone by modeling the empathy building trust and showing respect for other people, and that gets passed throughout the entire organization. Stay tuned. That's all I have for relationships. We'll talk about meaning next week and stay tuned here on Cadre. We have JC coming up here at 1230. And we have a lot more for us today. Check out the calendar on the app here. Also, you can go on Instagram and check us out at @joincadre on Instagram. Have a good rest of your Monday, everybody.

Bye.