Build Relationships – Get Promoted

Charlotte Beers stressed the importance of professional relationship building and maintenance in her keynote at the Invent Your Future Conference for women which I spoke at last month. Quite often people think promotion and career growth predictors are based on competence, intelligence, or even exceptional strategy or visioning within an organization. While these can play a role – the relationship factor is the most significant when predicting promotions and who gets ahead in the career world.

Research conducted by the Leadership Machine (Lombardi and Eichinger) studied 1000+ people over a two-year period and those who had strong networks and leveraged relationships moved up more than those who did not. The top three predictors of promotion for managers were: boss relationships, peer relationships, and customer relationships.

Erin Wolf, a national leadership expert notes that performance is still measured but managing up, understanding the politics, and getting along with co-workers and is a necessary part of playing the career game.

The first step at managing your relationships, according to Wolf is to get to know yourself. What are your motivations? Fears? What are your hot buttons? It’s easier to relate to and manage others if you know yourself well.

Successful leaders understand and build relationships knowing what makes them tick and how to communicate effectively with others. They take time to get to know the psyches and personalities of their co-workers and their new network contacts to relate to them authentically.

Investing your time and energy into developing and nurturing professional relationships is a key factor in your career future. So give yourself some time to think about what makes you tick and then consider how you communicate and listen to others. Building relationships will never become obsolete even in this technology driven era.