Articles

The essence of relationship management

As we assume more professional and mature responsibilities, the ability to manage relationships becomes more important. We will need to learn other skills necessary in creating bonds with others. According to Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, there are six core competencies in the aspects of relationship management:

Inspire: You start out building better relationships by serving as an inspiration. Some people need motivation or a driving force to push them to do things. If you motivate other people, you can empathise with them and make them see reality in a bigger picture.

Influence: You get people to listen and follow your moves by being influential in actions and speech. Once you have become influential, people easily believe and trust your abilities. You get the support of your team without so much hassle.

Develop: The third core competency of relationship-management encourages us to develop others in ways such as recognising their accomplishments, giving feedback, coaching, and the like.

Initiate change: Being vigilantly aware of what is going on in our surroundings and the changes that we invoke help form better bonds especially when you show to them that any positive change or changes for the better start with you.

Manage conflict: Conflict management requires good listening and self-control. Part of building good relationships is learning how to handle difficult and challenging situations with tact. You attempt to find a solution and encourage open communication instead of dwelling on the problem.