Create Impactful Partnerships at all Levels
January 29, 2024
Leadership lessons are my vibe these days. I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on so many things now that I have a little time to think during my sabbatical season. There are so many lessons, but what I’ve learned is that sometimes we do not take the time to fully absorb the growth and maturation that learning the lesson provides us. I’m happy to have a bit of time to reflect now, and over the last week I’ve really been thinking about how much I relied of others within my work environment to truly get things done. Now we all know that partners are important to us throughout many facets of life. Spouses and life partners are tremendous connections that love, support, encourage and more. As parents, we take partners with care givers, teachers, doctors, and many more to ensure the success and health of our children. Our friends and family are key partners as well. In the work environment, there are so many people that help to support or enable our professional success. Sometimes we spend a lot of time focusing on the big visible partners, stakeholders, and peers that are obvious. Maybe you spend time focused on cultivating relationships with your boss or maybe your finance, marketing, supply chain, engineering, or operations partners. These are often peers or stakeholders that sit above or parallel to you on the org chart. Now don’t get me wrong, these people are crucial to business success, but I’ve been thinking a lot on on particular lesson and that is to not equate the impact or ranking of a partner with where they sit on that org chart.
I want to spend a little time focusing on these work partnerships that help us make meaningful impact and realize growth professionally beyond the obvious ones. When you start a new role a lot of times your manager or their chief of staff/business manager will put together an onboarding guide to really help you acclimate to the new organization. In that guide there may be a list of names of people you should connect with or that will be critical to build a relationship with. Some of these people may be familiar as you may have interviewed with them or met them during the hiring process. This list is a bit of a cheat sheet for you to learn who’s who in the organization. Make “friends” with these folks and you all live happily ever after, right? But what about the people not on the list?
While they may have covered the people to the left, right, and above you, they may not have considered this below you. It is just as important to make connections and build key relationships with people that are not as senior as you. The managers and individual contributors are, more often than not, the eyes, ears, and boots on the ground that help you understand more of the culture, organizational sentiment, and what is really happening (or not ) day-to-day. It is crucial for your success as a leader to cultivate relationships with the people who work on your team—at all levels—and who work for your peers. Invest time to meet and develop relationships with the people who are really in the trenches of the work as they can sometimes be more helpful in moving the mountains you may soon face. Successful leaders realize that their most important and impactful partners may not always be the highest-ranking people on the org chart.
I had a Senior/Corporate Vice President-level leader, who is now an amazing friend and CEO, once tell me that one of the key mistakes she made was focusing on building relationships with peers and not spending enough time getting to know the layer of leaders and individual contributors below her direct reports. While she eventually did an amazing job of cultivating relationships at all levels, it took her longer to build the trust amongst this community who could truly connect with her as a leader. A lot of times we focus our partnering energies on our peers or other senior leaders from across the organization. I know I’ve been guilty of that a time or two, and some organization value and reward understanding the tone and building relationships at the top. Yes, those people are super important in making decisions, helping to enable or activate their teams to support, navigating your career, and building alliances. But sometimes your most impactful partners are people who help you stay organized, build and extend culture, acclimate, and do the actual work that enables your success.
In my own career, I’ve found that some of most impactful partnerships for me have been with executive assistants, chiefs of staff, business managers, and the like. They have not only helped me personally show up better organized, informed, and polished because of the preparation they facilitate, but the ones that I connected with that were not on my team were usually the closest to the leaders they supported. Those that were career chiefs of staff and business managers had similar relationships with a lot of other leaders they previously worked with and could help provide guidance on more than one leader. Of course, they helped me navigate getting on calendars, logistics, and being prepared, but also helped me to understand and navigate culture, organizational politics, understand what may be top of mind for that leader, and often coached on how to navigate the potential minefields I was walking into. They had history, context, and proximity that most other people in the organization did not. They were also just great people—and they helped me tremendously.
The moral of the story is to assess your stakeholder and partner list to make sure it looks left, right, up AND down. More importantly ensure that there is equity and a bit of a level-agnostic approach to how you invest your time cultivating partnerships. Ensure that you are showing appreciate and gratitude for partners across all facets of your work life and that you open yourself up to finding work partners in places you may least expect them.
