BY GEOFFREY JAMES@SALES_SOURCE

Great leaders are role models for building strong relationships. This rule of thumb makes relationship-based leadership easy.

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Everybody knows that good leadership is essential to business success. Until recently, though, leadership has remained an "I know it when I see it" concept rather than something that can be studied and understood scientifically.

For example, every manager (and every parent) quickly discovers that "do as I say, not as I do" never works. Followers inevitably imitate a leader's behavior which is why great leaders are role models first and order-givers second.

The importance of being a role model has been known for millennia, but it's only in the past few years that we've known the scientific reason. Mirror neurons in the human brain cause people to unconsciously imitate the behaviors of those around them.

Similarly, it's common knowledge that a great leader is always good at building strong relationships, not just between the leader and individual team members, but also between the team members themselves.

Put another way, a leader who's good at relationship building acts as a role model (i.e. uses mirror neurons) to show team members how to build better relationships between and among themselves. The result is a cohesive team that's easily to lead.

How do great leaders build relationships? From the viewpoint of neuroscience, business relationships are just like other relationships and can therefore be fostered and strengthened using the same or similar methods.

With this in mind, leadership guru Jon Pratlett recently pointed out that studies by Dr. John Gottman of the University of Washington shows that relationships are strengthened by positive interactions and weakened by negative ones.

Such interactions consists of comments, facial expressions, gestures and body-language, either by themselves or in combination. For example, a pat on the back would be a "positive" while giving somebody the cold shoulder would be a negative.

For a relationship to remain strong and functional, there must be a ratio of at least five positives for each negative. For example, every time you criticize a team member, you should provide at least 5 compliments on what they're doing correctly.

The same thing is true of facial expressions. If you want to build strong relationships and encourage them among your team, when you're around team members, you should smile 5 times more frequently than you frown.

Maintaining this 5 to 1 ratio of positive/negative interactions creates an emotional climate where team members feel more connected and therefore are more likely to work together well and consider a wider range of ideas and initiatives.

And isn't that what leadership is all about?

What do you think? Is this something you can benefit from or do you have a few tricks up your sleeve that are just as powerful? Make your voice heard by leaving a comment below. Don’t forget to hit the share button if you know others who will find this post useful.

I.C. Collins ~ Author, Educator, Trainer and President: Has One Simple Goal: Improve a Million Automotive Sales Consultants Lives with our ebook "How to Succeed in the Automotive Sales Industry"

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