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Building trusted and sustainable relationships with both individuals and organisations are integral to any leadership role.
It increases workplace satisfaction, may facilitate career transitions and new responsibilities, helps you create a network of connections, and lays the groundwork for future leadership roles. It also helps your organisation because people skills and teamwork are so important in most fields.
As the world evolves, working from home may become part of your new normal, and building relationships can be even more challenging. The lack of face-to-face connection whilst virtual working means we need to work that bit harder to forge and maintain relationships.
Building relationships can be even more challenging with lack of face to face connection. This is a perfect opportunity to review the importance of building and maintaining professional relationships through virtual means and how this can be done effectively in our new world of work.
For those of you who like to watch a short video, here are just a few interesting ones that consider different professional relationships that we each must maintain; be that with the team we manage, our co-workers, clients or individuals outside of our business.
Relationships are absolutely critical to supporting and nurturing us throughout our careers, especially as they become increasingly more squiggly. In this career tip, Helen and Sarah discuss how you can build better relationships at work by thinking about whether the people that you want to build relationships with are who, what, how or why focused.
It’s important to develop good relationships at work. They improve happiness, trust and engagement. Here are five ways to build strong, positive relationships at work!
When selling over the phone, the first and most important skill to master is building rapport. Once you have rapport, your conversation is more relaxed, your prospect is more comfortable, they trust you more and they are more open to your suggestions and recommendations.
There is a strong relationship between business culture and performance. Jason Treu introduces a simple way to quickly connect people who have no prior relationship, for the sake of rapport and results.
Are you ready to have real influence? Learn about Matching & Mirroring – one of the most powerful ways to connect with another – and tips to help you create strong bonds and engagement with your clients, partners, friends and family.
We all have a unique personality, but we also show up to others in ways we don’t know. Understanding how our brains become consciously aware of ourselves, and in turn, everyone else, teaches us how we can connect, adapt and ultimately influence others.
From co-workers and colleagues to friends and family, we are faced with challenging relationships daily. Unfortunately, we often go about managing them the wrong way. Only by elevating our understanding of behaviour and acting through an internalised approach will we be able to master the conflicts created by dealing with difficult people.
If you prefer to read, here you will find a range of articles that cover building great working relationships and networking tips. Whilst some articles will focus on face to face interactions, the fundamentals still apply when building strong relationships in virtual settings.
To help you put your knowledge into practice, we a range of resources to help you to develop your relationship skills, handling professional dilemmas and solving problems for clients and stakeholders.
Building Relationships
Sign up for a live online Skills Session. Our 2.5-hour online sessions encourage active participation, allowing you to exchange ideas with tutors and fellow apprentices.
By participating, you will:
Explore the significance of workplace values and their impact on workplace relationships.
Discover the secrets to creating and maintaining effective working relationships.
Acquire a range of techniques and tools to empower you to make positive changes that enhance the quality of your relationships.
Click on the link below to find out when the next session is running.
Learning to stretch our thinking skills is integral to accelerating our development. This is a really important part of the learning process, and gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your skills and show progression in your Apprenticeship.
Here are two challenges for you to pick from- should you choose to accept, this will help you to develop critical thinking, evaluation skills and encourage creativity.
Challenge 1
Identify an opportunity where you have shared your knowledge and experience with others at work recently. Reflect on the situation and consider how you interacted with the person you helped. How did you adapt your support to their needs? How do you know they understood your explanations and support? How did you demonstrate empathy, and take into consideration the emotions of others?
Analyse your performance and identify any areas of strength and areas for development. Discuss your reflection with your Talent Coach and agree on an action plan to take the next development steps. There are some great resources on this page to support the development of empathy and understanding others.
Challenge 2
Building Relationships can take different forms in our personal and professional lives.
Consider your communication style and preferences you use in your professional life. Contrast this with the style and preferences within your personal life. Analyse the two considering the similarities and differences and your level of confidence in each.
Evaluate and justify whether you feel your communication skills are stronger in your professional or personal life justifying your conclusions. Identify an area for improving your performance in this area. Discuss your reflection with your Talent Coach and agree on an action plan to take the next development steps.
Update your Learning Journal in OneFile with your evaluation and your reflections ready to discuss with your Talent Coach at your next review.
Reflective practice is, in its simplest form, thinking about or reflecting on what you do. It’s a really important part of learning from experience.
Within your apprenticeship you will be encouraged to reflect throughout your programme, the reason for this is two-fold.
Regular reflection will accelerate your development and help you to identify areas to develop helping you to constantly move forward.
A summary or log of your reflections on your development will be required as part of your endpoint assessment activities. These reflections should demonstrate your ability to 'critically evaluate' your performance and development.
Reflection is a skill and practice will make it easier, it should also be an enjoyable experience and a chance to concentrate on what you need.
To support you to develop this skill we have gathered a range of resources and articles to help you find a reflective model that works for you.
Click on the button below to access the Reflective Practice page for additional resources.