High Performance Leaders Build
Strong Healthy Relationships

Who did you call when you heard about 9/11 - your stockbroker, your banker or someone who has significance in your life? At the final count, what makes for a significant life are the relationships you have. It is not how much money you have, nor how many possessions you have accumulated. It is the quality and depth of love that you surround yourself with, (both in and outside of work).

Just as strong, healthy relationships are the foundation of any great life; so too are they the foundation upon which any great organization is built.

Your ability to lead well is directly proportional to your ability to establish strong and healthy relationships. And yet, you probably have had at least one relationship which has been challenging - an unhealthy relationship, that you'd rather not have experienced. Is there a reason for challenging relationships?

Relationships can cause you to be at your greatest and they can cause you to be at your most base. Who hasn't felt the thrill of knowing that they have inspired or positively influenced another person at work? Who hasn't had that terrible gut lurching feeling knowing that you have just hugely damaged another person and your relationship with them because of your own poor behavior?

Yep - with a bit of insight you can certainly learn a lot about yourself from the way you treat and interact with others. One of the reasons we are here as humans is to expand, learn, grow. And surely, the one thing over which we have 100% influence and ability to develop is ourselves. This is the gift working and leading in organizations gives us --- the ability to reflect upon how we deal with various situations and people and whether we are doing a better job than we did say six months ago. Whether we are actually becoming the best possible version of ourselves.

Sitting on a side of a mountain chanting 'ohm' can be a path to spiritual growth - possibly a very slow path. However interacting each and every day with a multitude of people ensures that you are constantly growing and learning, personally and spiritually.

The true role of any relationship that you have, work, family, partner, is to awaken within each other your potential. Now awakening potential is not always plain sailing. Your relationships very often stimulate within you the very parts of yourself that you'd rather not face. Boy oh boy did I for a long time try to avoid admitting that my strong personality (particularly once I moved into leadership roles) wasn't always appreciated by others and that maybe, just maybe if I softened up a little I might get better, quicker, faster results and be more consistently inspiring!

Strong, healthy relationship flourish with self-discovery

People often blame the other person for the way they are feeling and the state of the relationship. In truth, the other person may well need to modify his/her behaviour. However, if you are focused on living a significant life through strong, healthy relationships and being your best, then assume responsibility for changing the way you react to the other person and his/her way of behaving.

You will establish strong, healthy relationships with others when you:

1. Establish what you want from that relationship and that person
   
   
2. Go within to discover what it is this person and this relationship could be teaching you about your predominant beliefs about yourself
   
   
3. Change what you have been doing, how you have been reacting
   
   
4. Decide that you want to show up as the best possible version of yourself in every interaction you have ... be it with a person serving you in a store, to one of the people who report to you, to your boss or to your life partner and children

Every great leader is a master at building strong relationships. However, strong, healthy relationships begin with self-discovery. If you haven't got someone mentoring you to help you on your self-discovery journey then get one now! It is the quickest and best way to high performance and flowing into being the best possible version of you!

Or maybe you'd just like to download the ebook I wrote to help you build healthy relationships: "Understanding and Influencing Difficult People"