Top 5 Benefits of Relational Leadership Style

The success of an organization specifically depends on several factors, but one of the major factors that influence the success of the company is the leadership style exemplified by the leader. Working through conflicts in the workplace and motivating employees are highly dependent on the leadership style that sets the cultural tone for the company. Despite there being several leadership styles that have their own merits and demerits, Relational Leadership attributes have proven to be some of the most effective incorporated by companies. So, what is Relational Leadership? Relational Leadership is defined as a leadership strategy that focuses on creating well-being throughout the company, internally and externally. It is an employee-oriented as well as customer-oriented leadership perspective. This leadership approach has been gaining positive reviews in the corporate sector because it is known to generate significant results for the company. Here are some of the benefits of relational leadership style.

Solving Disputes

Employment disputes are very common in major organizations around the world. Employees might be disputing with the employer due to the poor working conditions, workplace safety, and the quality of the work performed. In many cases, these disputes end up in EEOC processes or in labor courts, and often both parties suffer. Relational leadership is not specifically geared towards forming solid and unmovable stands against the employees. It is a leadership focus that involves understanding the needs of the employees and coming up with a compromise that adheres to the needs of the employee and the employer without moving to courts.

Leaders as Facilitators

Most of the leaders who have incorporated the relational leadership style are facilitating leaders. A facilitating leader is a supervisor who helps his/her team to achieve the expected objectives. Most of the leaders are known to be very subjective. They push their employees to the limit and request for unreasonable targets to be met. These leaders treat their employees as subjects. Relational leaders act as facilitators and treat their employees as co-workers. All of them, including the leader, are working towards achieving a common goal.

Enhancing Sense of Belonging

Most of the employees have a feeling that they are working for a huge corporate body that is only interested in the output generated by the workers. This perspective creates a huge boundary between the workers and the organization and most of them feel that they work to be paid. However, relational leadership focus changes this perspective and puts employees at the driving wheel of the organization. Creating a sense of camaraderie between the company and the employees such that they feel they are part of the company and they belong to a large family.

Employee Motivation

Workplace conflict is one of the major factors that lower motivation at the places of work. Workplace conflicts are likely to skyrocket where the leader is not focused on the interests of employees but ends up showing significant levels of discrimination and biases. This reduces motivation and sometimes increases employee turnover. However, with positive vibes coming from the leader, other employees are likely to follow the same behavior, and there will be no conflict in the company. With a greater sense of friendship and a situation where all workers are treated the same, motivation will be very high.

Encouraging Innovation

Employees are supposed to come up with methods of simplifying their tasks with the company. However, with bad leadership, there is no motivation and drive to come up with new and fresh ideas that can make the work easier while at the same time increasing the output of the company. With relational leadership style, the innovation model of idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realization are enhanced. The impacts of employees and their technological innovations are encouraged and motivated by the leader. This makes the employees have the drive to be innovative and to make the various activities carried out in the company to be more efficient. Relational leadership style is not only a leadership perspective that can be used in organizational growth and development. It can as well be used to solve social aspects such as divorce through mediation, which is 40 to 60 percent lower than the legal divorce litigation process. Therefore, it is a cost-effective technique that can be used in solving various conflicts.