Strong Peer Relationships are Key to Collaboration

Organizations are increasingly putting high expectations on leaders these days. Leaders are expected to 1. act quickly, respond to dynamic conditions, 2. build followership among all the unique characters, and 3. collaborate laterally with other leaders to achieve even greater results. I want to focus in on #3, not only because it takes more time, but it also takes more effort and skill –emotional intelligence skill to be specific.

Emotional Intelligence looks at how we process emotions effectively and use them to facilitate good decisions, as opposed to reaction and knee-jerk decisions. One’s understanding of their emotional landscape is captured in four pillars – Self Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness and Relationship Management.

All four pillars play a role in collaboration, but none is more important than Relationship Management, in my opinion. Leaders will be able to work collaboratively cross-functionally if they have built strong relationships laterally with their peers. Consider for a moment, how much more willing you are to collaborate when someone listens to you and makes room for your needs? Or when the opposite is true?

Many of us would say we are good listeners and we know how to build relationships, longer term. Yet inside organizations we experience leaders struggling to get alignment and to collaborate with each other. The reasons for this are varied – it could be:

that the direction from the top is not clear and therefore alignment is not achievable;
that we struggle to make time for the collaboration conversations to take place;
one or more of the leaders may not have the skills and self-awareness to collaborate effectively;
generally, we underestimate how much flexibility it takes to collaborate with a peer.

Skillful leaders must well understand that their emotions are information, and that they can use that information in helpful ways. This means they have to sometimes step over difficult behaviour by a peer and persevere, not taking the actions personally. We all know how difficult this can be.

They must strike a delicate balance between leveraging their own expertise and allowing themselves to acquiesce to others’ expertise. They must balance meeting their own interests with a willingness to adapt to others’ interests. Working laterally, they must do it through influence not authority nor power. Their title buys them very little — their skill and willingness to collaborate matters much more.

Some things I keep in mind when collaborating with a peer are:

Prioritize peer relationships and show commitment. This means make sure your calendar demonstrates that you are making time for and spending time with peers in order to have those alignment or difficult conversations;
Paraphrase and summarize what you hear a peer leader saying, so they know you have heard and understood them;
Find ways to give them what they want/need, or at least have them be able to “win” sometimes because that is what a strong reciprocal relationship looks like. Someone does not want to feel like they are “losing” or “sacrificing” more often;
If a relationship is broken, it is very common to avoid that person. Instead, push yourself to reach out, offer help, and demonstrate a willingness to listen. Even giving your time to listen is a meaningful offer;
Finally, ask the question, “how do I make it easier to work with me?”, and act on at least some of the suggestions you receive.

Bottom line, if you hold strong relationships with your peers, you will be a better collaborator.

Relationships are central to leadership. Kwela has a number of workshops that address how to build meaningful work/personal relationships, such as Authentic Communication, Emotional Intelligence, and Influencing.

Joanne Spalton, Senior Consultant
joannes@kwelaleadership.com