From Transactional to Relational — A Framework for Successful People Leadership
In your workplace today, think of a few persons you can talk to with your struggles at work and career aspirations beyond your current organization.
What are the chances that one of them is your boss?
The work of a manager is to ensure that there is a delicate balance between helping the business win and his team succeed knowing that tradeoffs need to be made one way or the other. Context is often lost however when communication channels (or communication itself) is compromised. If both sides fail to trust each other enough, extracting accurate data from these social interactions becomes a luxury. It is to no surprise that the quality of a person’s connection with his manager is highly associated to the quality of decision the manager makes. That said, the manager needs to ensure that he should create an environment where building rapport is done in perpetuity. Should a manager fail to do so, he is then forced to make decisions from limited and/or inaccurate data. Let it be clear as well that one should not draw an invisible line between a manager and a leader. One cannot be one without the other. A leader without a follower is simply taking a walk.
Research has shown that people give different responses in situations of fear and futility. In fact, people are twice as unlikely to give accurate information for reason of futility rather than fear.
When doing productive work, social interaction can be generally categorized into two: transactional and relational. Every interaction is a combination of both. In a transactional interaction, each party works with the other to push their agenda. On the other hand, in a relational interaction, each party works with the other to come up with a shared solution. Observe that every person you interact with either is dominantly transactional or relational. Yet, the more relational the interaction is, more often the better the outcome is. The most evident reason of course is that in a relational interaction, more data is surfaced. In the age of information, data-driven decision making is fundamental.
This chart below helps to quickly identify the differences between transactional and relational interactions:
In everything one does, it is imperative to think long term and work his way back on how to get there. The tragedy of compromised communication channels come in full swing in the absence of a long term vision. To ensure productivity in the long term, one must reinforce a culture where everyone is empowered to interact relationally, not transactionally.
Interestingly, it is not a surprise that human emotion is the key to move interactions from transactional to relational. When each person engages the other with trust and respect and exudes a willingness to collaborate rather than to take the lion’s share of the direction, he finds himself unpacking layers of productivity which are otherwise unavailable. One must understand that not every hill is worth dying on. Social interaction is a dance where it takes both hands to clap. A leader who reinforces a largely transactional affair among his team (and others) is forced to work with minimal (and often inaccurate) data. Solving problems therefore becomes a bigger challenge.
He who uses wrong data to solve the right problem solves nothing. Hence, it is worthy to note that as the leader peels away the layers of distrust, so also does he unpack layers of genuine data.
The leader must not sacrifice relationships on the altar of execution. That is: a leader focused solely in execution thinks simply short term. To be clear however, there are certain scenarios where short term thinking is necessary such as in the event of tight deadlines or in crisis management. In essence, short term thinking can be useful when the goal is to buy enough time to keep things afloat. However, for the most part, thinking relational must be the default. It must be noted further that if everything is a priority, then nothing is. Hence, as a leader, if the perpetual excuse for transactional interaction is because he is focused on execution, he will be forced to stifle first his team, then the teams around him.
Treat people well. Do unto others what you want others do unto you. They will pay you back in multiples of the investments you’ve made for them.
