Work and Relationship

Ken and Scott Blanchard, at Fast Company:

Human relationships are dynamic, not static. Leaders who rest on their laurels or take people for granted can find themselves with problem relationships down the road.

When people sense a lack of connectedness with their leader–and as a result feel undervalued and unappreciated–they are much more likely to focus their energy on individual needs rather than to engage in the work of the organization. Once this happens, work relationships can quickly degenerate into emotional minefields.

When employees feel unappreciated, their performance suffers and they need support from their leaders. But leaders who see employee performance slipping often make things worse by focusing on employees’ poor performance and tightening up on discipline. This leads to even more feelings of alienation on the part of the employees. Now it seems as though leaders only care about what the employees have done for them lately. At this point, communication between employee and leader can be fraught with negative emotions and misunderstandings.

No wonder many leaders prefer to keep emotions completely out of the equation and instead maintain a professional distance in their work relationships. This approach might avoid the worst of the problems described above, but it won’t foster the emotional commitment and connectedness with the leader that is a key part of our employee work passion equation. Our research over the past five years has shown that the extent to which an individual perceives he or she has a supportive and personal relationship with his or her leader is one of 12 factors that lead to a sense of employee well-being and intentions to perform at a higher level.