Quote-A-Day: Day 178

Remember: The #relationships you built yesterday are the people you'll need to rely on today. #QuoteADay #Day178 #edchat #edu #PeopleFirst

I’ve probably written about this prior, but when it comes to being an effective leader, one of the first things you need to be able to do is cultivate relationships. 

This is different from being able to schmooze.  This is about cultivating truly deep relationships that last for years on end.

This isn’t easy.  To build strong relationships we need to take time, and there is never enough of that to begin with. 

But, that doesn’t make relationship building any less important.  When we get to know people, when we get to know them so well that we can talk about more than just work and family, and talk about truly deep topics, then we know we’ve built a lasting relationship.

Yes, leaders can succeed with only surface relationships.  But, they can’t be transformative. 

Major change and transformation requires relationships that can hold up under any stress.  These types of relationships not only take a lot of work to build, but they require a lot of maintenance to keep going.  The upside to all this hard work is that these are the people who you can lean on when things get tough.  And, since you never know when things are going to get tough, it pays to build these deep relationships as often as you can.

We always need people to rely on, and rather than hit a stretch where we wonder why we don’t have people to come to our aid, why not take the time to build deep relationships so when the time comes, we will.