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Relationships are integral to your success and the success of any team in any arena. When you recognize that relationships are paramount, you will prioritize building strong relationships with everyone around you to be victorious.

We want to be able to influence others. Whether at work, home or in our community, we often think we know best and want others to GO WITH OUR PLAN.

To gain respect from others, we have to earn it. Through performance, hard work, and demonstrated success, respect is earned from those around us.

Like a half-duplex radio, you cannot receive transmissions from anyone else whenever you are in transmit mode. You can’t hear what anyone else is saying as long as you are speaking. You can’t listen to them.

When you express “we” in the negative, the person or persons to whom you are speaking are likely to think: “You mean me.” It sounds like you are casting blame on them. Even if that wasn’t your intention, it is often interpreted that way. So be careful in the language that you use.

As human beings, we all tend to blame others. Something in our nature drives our immediate default response to blame anyone or anything other than ourselves. The level of frustration or stress we are under only exacerbates this tendency.

An effective leader knows they can’t blame an inexperienced team member who is working on a critical part of a project. They will make the extra effort to train that team member, check in with them frequently, and make sure that they are on track to be successful. These actions prevent critical errors before they even happen.

If you’re ineffective, you need to take ownership of the problem and figure out an effective solution. If you’re effective, you should still carefully analyze where you can create efficiencies and become even more effective.

Most leadership problems are common. Everyone must tackle these same or similar problems in order to be successful. Leadership is the solution.