When I get out of bed to kick off the day, one of my thoughts as I spend quality quiet time in prayer and reflecting is “who can I and how can I add value to a particular person or person(s) today”? I am motivated by the interactions that I have with others, and I have come to discover that my purpose in life is to help others grow into the best versions of themselves by helping them see their worlds through a different viewpoint. You could probably conclude that this has helped lead to the growth of our organization. I have some incredible leaders on my Team that I can now coach that also guess what, they love to see others grow! It’s truly a recipe for success(cascading leadership model)!
Outside of your own personal growth, nothing places a cap on your leadership like a bunch of ineffective relationships. As a leader, when you fail to develop healthy and productive relationships with your team, you fail to lead at your maximum potential. Great leadership requires developing solid relationships. While there are challenges to developing good relationships with your team, one of the biggest is often overlooked: In trying to relate to others, many leaders simply forget to be relatable to their Team. They sometimes can forget where they came from and may start to outpace those under their charge. I love the way John Maxwell says it, “Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them”.
I wake up and think of every situation I’m going to possibly interact on today and remind myself that I must remain relatable in every one of them. I must seek to understand the other persons viewpoint before I share mine. And once that is all in place, I add value to the situation from a relatable standpoint by thinking the outcome needs to be a win / win. Between clients, vendors, employees, and also potential employees, etc.. I meet people in all sorts of circumstances from all sorts of backgrounds and different values. And the common denominator in every situation is guess what, ME! It’s up to me to connect with them and that begins with me making that connection easy. How I do this varies on the particular person and situation, but at the root of it is a simple set of ideas that make me relatable to others.
Here are (4) key ideas for being relatable as a leader:
Know What Your Values Are – I’ve long said that my top personal values are my relationship with God, my family, my reputation of integrity and excellence in the world, and continued growth for myself and for others that look to me for guidance. These four ideals form the basis for my beliefs and actions; they shape how I see things, and how I want to impact others with my life. When you know what you stand for, what you believe, and how you see the world, you’re in the best position to live authentically and remain relatable with your people because you know who you are!
Know Your Value – Let me go ahead and put your mind at rest: that’s not a typo. Knowing what you value is different from knowing your own value. Your value comes from within—it’s what you uniquely bring to the world through your existence, the combination of your strengths, your skills, and your ability to make others be better. When you know your individual value you can live at ease with others because you’re better prepared to add value from your places of strength. From what your superpowers are!
Know the Value of Others – Once you know your own value, your focus should shift to seeing the value of others. Every person you encounter has intrinsic value, which means they should be appreciated for who they are. Granted, some people are a little harder to appreciate than others, but the responsibility of a leader is to dig deep and see more than others do. If you’ll appreciate people for where they are at, and their impact on your life, you’ll discover that they relate to you a lot better. And this is where magic can happen!
Know How You Can Add Value to Others – I can’t speak on this principle enough: adding value to others is the essential task of a leader. You invite people into a relationship when you as a leader regularly serve others, are quick with a kind word, and are first to encourage someone. When people can see that you genuinely like people, they will know and believe that you might genuinely like them too. And they will trust your input! Rather than acting like it is a chore to be helping someone, I want you to go out of your way each day to be kind and encouraging to people. By showing that you care, you can (and will) add value to others.
When you know what you stand for, what you believe, and how you see the world around you, you’re in the best position to live authentically with your people because you know who you are and what you value.
Remember this, not all people are called to be leaders. So don’t go getting frustrated when certain people are just who they are, even in the most relatable circumstances. I’ve said this before, multiple times, one of my biggest takeaways in my leadership journey was how I once put people into leadership roles, and gave them authority to make major leadership decisions, and they were not the right people for the seats. And I tried to force something that never should’ve been to begin with. I can’t stress this one enough — If you take one thing from this teaching, let it be this.. Not all people are called to be leaders! Think before you give away ownership to a particular person!
Many people think that being relatable is a skill people are just born naturally with. Like you either have it or you don’t. This couldn’t be further from the truth – Being relatable is something that can be learned and cultivated with enough practice and through daily, intentional efforts. The most relatable leaders possess a lot of information and are transparent with it with their people. When you freely share personal and business information, you allow people to get to know you so they can understand you. This includes mistakes. If you mess up, fess up and tell the team rather than trying to hide it from them. Be intelligent and ethical in your use of information but in order to be relatable you need to give your people a reason to trust you. If your people don’t trust you, being relatable is the last thing you need to be concerned with.
In closing – Being relatable as a leader doesn’t mean being everyone’s best friend. This is a difficult thing to manage for younger leaders especially. It doesn’t mean saying or doing things that effectively bribe others into liking you. Not even close… Being relatable to people means being yourself and living an authentic, consistent life with the people you lead. If you want better relationships, you must be relatable to people! It all begins with you, but it never ends there. Relating well with others creates a ripple effect that changes lives for the better forever.
If before you read this, or even now as we land the plane, and you aren’t quite sure how to be relatable to others, trust me… I could once too relate to how you are feeling!