Trappings of Professional Relationships
Posted by Rajeev Shukla on May 5, 2009
Our race is social by nature and probably is most dependent on social interaction among any living species. Whatever be the individual personality, everyone creates his circle in and out of the organization we work for. In a professional setup, these circles (called professional relationship) get created because of reasons much beyond liking or disliking (or preference) of an individual.
In a professional organization, several of us form working relationships, which are driven from ‘comfort factor’, some more of us form relationship, which are result of ‘influence factor’, some further more of us form relationship, which are result of ‘political equation’. These relationships, developed for whatever reasons, become a tangible force in the organization. Several decisions and sometime directions get decided based on relationship map and its influences on organization.
As a professional developing these kind of relationships in the organization is good. Actually many/most of these relationships form a ‘binding and acceptance glue’ in an organization, which makes the daily working a lot more effortless than it would be in absence of these relationships. The ‘question’ and ‘apprehension’ element is dealt with far more ease in the organizations, where strong working relationship equations exist.
But, as a leader, people need to watch out for certain eccentricities, these relationships can bring in their behavior, decisions and actions.
A relationship is based on trust, and hence by definition, once established it diminishes the ability to question and doubt between two people. A lot of time, when a strong working relationship exists between two people, we tend to support ideas, concepts, opinions and decisions (coming from one in two people in a relationship) with far less discretion than if the relationship did not exist. That is NOT a good situation, and it calls for specific leadership behavior and precautions.
No, matter, what the relationship is and how strong it is and with who it is – it should not play a role in a decision, action and opinion in a professional context. Probably everyone understands the significance of not mixing the ‘personal’ and ‘professional’ elements. But on very many occasions, we tend to honor relationship more than our professional ethics and let it play a role in a professional opinion, action or decision. We do this because somewhere in the back of our mind, we keep a thought that our relationship is a professional one and it can not play a role in our actions. Reality is far from it on many occasions.
A leader specifically can not afford to let his opinions, actions and decisions get biased because of his preferences of relationships in the organization. A leader is to be seen as an example of fairness, so it is critically important that we keep any form of relationship and corresponding biases out.
Trappings of professional relationship are many, leaders know how to deal with them!
