Most people aspire to be effective in their work efforts. They get a good education, learn important technical skills, and stay up on the latest industry trends. These are all important steps to a person’s success in business and yet,…

As a person advances in responsibility within an organization a shift takes place. It is a shift from performing the technical work one’s self to getting the technical work done through others. At first, it seems like simply getting good at managing. But if you’ve been at this even a short time, you soon realize that it’s not always as easy as it looks. The truth is that what you are really managing is the process, not the people. Things get managed. People get led.

Managing is about things. It’s about process and task. You can manage time, products, inventory, and budgets. People, on the other hand, must be led. What happens when someone attempts to manage people? We’ve all seen the results. People resent being treated as “things”. What happens when we’re treated like “things”? We become alienated, resentful, resistant, complacent, and unenthused. Someone who treats people as things is often insensitive, unsympathetic, and focused on self rather than others. People, teams, and organizations must be led.

What does “leading” mean, as opposed to “managing”? Leading people comes down to Relationship Management. Effectively leading people, teams, or anyone else for that matter, relies on several competencies. These competencies are:

* Developing Others - Building others' abilities
* Inspirational Leadership - Having a compelling vision to lead with
* Change Catalyst - The ability to initiate, manage, and lead in a new direction
* Influence - The ability to utilize persuasion
* Conflict Management - The ability to resolve disagreements
* Teamwork and Collaboration - The ability to build and guide teams

These ideas aren’t just my best guess. They’re supported by a good deal of research as well. These people skills are well defined and discussed within the concepts set forth in the groundbreaking work done by Daniel Goleman on Emotional Intelligence. Studies have demonstrated that leaders who consistently outperform their peers not only have the technical skills required, but more importantly, have mastered most of the aspects of Emotional Intelligence. The four main areas of Emotional Intelligence are: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management. You can read more about these and other leadership concepts on our website: www.XLeaders.com

Improving one’s Emotional Intelligence starts with some Self-Awareness competencies and ultimately leads to effective Relationship Management. Many of the EI competencies are tightly related to one another, and improving competency in one area will often positively affect competency in other areas. Competence in each of these areas will help anyone become better at working with people. Proficiency in certain sets of these competencies will propel a leader and an organization towards greater productivity, greater satisfaction, and increased profitability. Leaders who build their Relationship Management skills find they have the ability to improve profitability, growth, satisfaction, teamwork, and vision.

How does someone improve their Relationship Management skills? It’s actually not as easy as it may appear at first glance to be. Although the goal is excellent Relationship Management, it starts with attaining and honing the ability to be aware of one’s self and of the “emotional currents” of others. In addition, it requires one to effectively manage one’s emotional triggers – especially the destructive ones. I’ll get to the “How” of development in a minute, but first we need to mention two more things which are required for leadership success – and are related to everything we’ve discussed so far. These two important things are Effective Communication Skills and High Personal

About the Author: Written by Michael Beck, President of Exceptional Leadership, Inc. a firm which develops high-performance leaders through leadership enhancement and executive coaching. Michael can be reached at 877-977-8956 or mbeck@XLeaders.com , and you can learn more about the company and these ideas at www.XLeaders.com Permission to reprint with full attribution. © 2004 Exceptional Leadership, Inc.