What is Relationship Management?

You may have heard leadership gurus say something along the lines of, “EQ is more important than IQ.” However, you may not know what EQ is or how to increase it.

Emotional Intelligence (often abbreviated “EQ”), is a leadership skill that focuses on one’s personal and social competencies. There are four components to emotional intelligence:

1. Self-Awareness
2. Self-Management
3. Social Awareness
4. Relationship Management

This post will focus on Relationship Management. In their book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves define relationship management as “(To have) a relationship that has staying power and grows over time, and in which your needs and the other person’s needs are satisfied” (p. 177). Bradberry and Greaves also explain that feedback is one of the strategies leaders can use to grow in relationship management  (p. 179). 

Feedback is one of the leadership principles I discuss in my book, A Leader Worth Imitating (Principle 19). I explain that feedback is empowering your team to ask questions, make suggestions, raise concerns, and/or challenge ideas.

While you might think you are calm under stress, your team might think the opposite. Similarly, you might have a team member who thinks they are calm under stress but you have observed the opposite. Because of this, mutual feedback is important. To be an emotionally intelligent leader, you need to be able to give and receive feedback. 

Think about it: How often does your team give you feedback? How often do you give them feedback?

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If your interested in learning more about EQ, check out the accompanying posts:

• What is Emotional Intelligence?
• What is Self-Awareness?
• What is Self-Management?
• What is Social Awareness?