Oct 29, 2019
Welcome to Midweek Motivate. The middle of the week can be challenging for leaders. The goal of midweek motivate is to give you one practical idea that you can try for yourself or with your team right away. This week we’re looking at positive relationships and self-esteem.
Researchers recently looked at 52 studies from around the world to clarify the relationship between self-esteem and the quality of relationships.
Their analysis found that having close relationships helps to boost our self-esteem. That is, our friendships can help us to feel better about ourselves and more confident. But they also found that the connection runs the other way as well. Having a strong sense of self-esteem enhances the quality of our friendships.
So what does that all mean for me as a leader? A key role of any leader is to help build connections, both within the team that you manage, and also across the organisation. Becoming a broker of relationships and connections will help your people to feel better about themselves and boost their confidence. And the effect is contagious - those positive relationships also help those outside your team to feel more confident and positive at work.
So this week, think about some people in your network that you can connect with people in your team. It could be someone to take on an informal mentoring role, or just an opportunity to learn more about another aspect of the organisation. Setup an introduction and then leave them to connect.
And why not use this midweek motivate as a prompt to reconnect with someone. The connections we have had in the past can sometimes fade with time, but take a deep breath and give them a call. It will help you and it will help them as well.
I hope you’re finding these midweek motivates helpful. Drop me an email to info@leadership.today if you have any areas you would like covered. And checkout the leadership.today website for a full archive of all of our Leadership Today podcast episodes. Have a great week.
Michelle A. Harris and Ulrich Orth. The Link Between Self-Esteem and Social Relationships: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2019 DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000265