Leverage Your Relationship DNA in the Workplace

Contributed by Lerzan Aksoy, Ph.D.

What are your relationship strengths and weaknesses?

The answer is not what you think; in fact, it comes down to exploring how one interacts with one’s co-workers. That is what I and my co-authors, Timothy Keiningham and Luke Williams of Ipsos Loyalty, discovered when we embarked on our study about relationship styles. The Ipsos Loyalty study, the most comprehensive study of loyalty ever conducted, comprised thousands of responses for a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population. In conducting the study, we found key differences between how men and women build relationships with their co-workers whether it be their boss, peers or those who report directly to them.

Knowing and understanding these differences can be of great use to those looking to gain competitive advantages at work and as a leader. In fact, it turns out that the more connected we feel to the people we work with, the more happiness and fulfillment we experience. Sadly, our study revealed that only one in 20 invests the time and effort to build relationships in the workplace.

The key to building better relationships starts with self awareness. We found that everyone has a distinct combination of ten relationship styles that makes up his or her “RELATIONSHIP DNA.” Five of those 10 styles demonstrated the main differences between the sexes: Our results indicated that women excel at three distinct relationship styles and problem coping styles compared to men (empathy, connectedness and emotion-focused coping), but falter in two (security and calculativeness), compared to men.

Taking a closer look, we explain each of the five styles, and dissect the various business pros and cons of each one.

Strengths

Women are stronger in:

1. Empathy, or how well you are able to identify and sympathize with others.

Pros:

• Makes you more adaptable and flexible in your outlook — a positive where diverse work culture and multiple opinions encourage innovation.
• Induces compassion, warmth, and friendliness — good for alliance and network building.
• Reduces distance with others — good for team building and aligning support for new initiatives.
• Enables quick identification of issues that others may not be aware of — helping you be a big-picture seer and a problem solver.

Cons:

• Feeling overburdened — sometimes you can get dragged down by the problems and weaknesses of others, whom you naturally want to assist.
• Overwhelmed with others’ issues — dealing with other people’s problems can start to impinge on your own effectiveness.
• Vulnerability — in a competitive work environment, being overly empathetic can make you a target for those who take advantage of your helpfulness and sensitivity.

2. Connectedness, or having close and frequent interactions with others.

Pros:

• Engenders trust — enabling you to gather firsthand information about what’s going on in office politics and behind the scenes on projects.
• Enrichment due to exposure to a variety of other individual styles, backgrounds, and experiences — which gives you a competitive advantage for promotions, client acquisition, and boosts your management clout.
• Flexibility and adeptness at adapting to new environments / new tasks / new people — makes you promotable, coachable, and influential in a variety of settings.
• Is closely associated with happiness — and studies show that likability is an essential trait of effective leaders.
• Fuels passion — and passion is what “sells” people on your ideas and proposals, and also creates strong workplace bonds.

Cons:

• Makes you “fall harder” — because you have invested so much time, energy, and faith into a project, job, or person, you may be susceptible to a bigger let down when it fails or disappoints.
• Discomfort with deteriorating connections — making you less able to move on when it’s time (or past time) to do so.
• Difficulty making an “executive decision.” Sometimes you have to disregard the feelings of others and just make a decision as a leader that may have negative consequences for people you care about.

3. Emotion-focused coping, or how you go about meeting challenges, overcoming obstacles, making choices, and withstanding the consequences of those decisions.

Pros:

• Eliciting nurturing, mentoring, and support from others — a good way to get smarter and better at what you do, even if you’re already at the top.
• Seeking advice from others — viewed as a positive trait of leaders.
• Tendency to feel secure. Your confidence makes others feel confident about your leadership.
• Potential to see different perspectives to the problem — makes you a smarter and more inclusive and creative decision maker.

Cons:

• Reduces speed in solving the root cause of the problem.
• Potential detraction from tangible steps to solve problem.
• A leader who often asks for feedback, doesn’t make decisions alone, and is overly emotional about decision making can be viewed as weak or indecisive by others.

Challenges

In our study, we found that on average women are weaker in:

1. Security, or having a general sense of comfort with one’s environment and future.

The downside of being weak in this relationship trait is that, as a leader, you may not be able to enjoy the moment or manage workplace anxiety well. You are more likely to feel on edge, and to question your decisions or worry that things are not going well. You may have less happiness at work than your more-secure peers.

2. Calculativeness, or the ability to control and promote your image and ideal environment for personal benefit.

The downside of being weak in this relationship trait is that you may not be promoting your brand and paying enough attention to your professional image. You may be a poor networker, failing to see how a relationship with others could be beneficial to you. As a person who is always sincere, easy to read, and acts like herself, you may be viewed as naïve and unable to jump on opportunities when they arise.

If we as women are able to recognize what we are good at when building relationships in the workplace, we can play to our strengths! We will also be more perceptive to others’ styles and can leverage this to further our relationship quality. We need one another to be successful and it’s difficult to get to the top just by yourself…

Lerzan Aksoy, Ph.D., associate professor of marketing at Fordham University, is co-author of Why Loyalty Matters(BenBella Books, 2009) with Timothy Keiningham and Luke Williams. To learn more about your individual relationship styles and how you can capitalize on them, you can download free materials from http://www.whyloyaltymatters.com/resources.