Building bridges; What can we accomplish together that we couldn’t achieve alone?

To foster more relational working practices in public services will need a rethink of  conventional leadership development thinking. When we think about leadership development, it’s often framed around the individual. But what if we shifted the focus? What if we looked at it through the lens of relationships?

The quality of interpersonal relationships at work is central to the performance and success of every organisation. Most leaders are experiencing more complexity and uncertainty about  their role in leading culture change. The focus of culture change seems to becoming more personal; there is a requirement for leaders to role model stepping into new, more collaborative ways of being in meetings. For many of us this may involve some degree of personal growth and for others, a significant transformation.

There seems to be a growing need for more relational ways of leading and managing. The dominant view of management is that work is done transactionally by individuals; yet the collaborative, interactive nature of organising and coordinating mutually interdependent tasks and roles means that effective working relationships are what gets things done. We are not machines, we are human beings with needs and feelings. We are not individuals, we are all connected, we need each other and our relationships are what matter most in life. 

More and more, we’re seeing the need for relational approaches to leadership. While traditional management has focused on transactional tasks, the reality is that much of the important work happens through the relationships we build and nurture. After all, we’re not just individuals working in silos—we’re interconnected human beings. 

At the end of the day, our relationships are what matter most, both in life and at work. If we want to foster real change, we can’t afford to overlook the power of relationships. Leadership and culture development must place relationships at the heart of the conversation.

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