AN IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOK
Interpersonal Savvy
Building and Maintaining Solid Working Relationships
IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOKS
Aimed at managers and executives who are concerned with their own and others’ development, each guidebook in this series gives specific advice on how to complete a developmental task or solve a leadership problem.
| CONTRIBUTORS | Bill Gentry, Kelly Hannum, |
| Ancella Livers, Hughes Van | |
| Stichel, Meena Wilson, | |
| Sophia Zhao | |
| DIRECTOR OF ASSESSMENTS, TOOLS, AND PUBLICATIONS | Sylvester Taylor |
| MANAGER, PUBLICATION DEVELOPMENT | Peter Scisco |
| EDITORS | Stephen Rush |
| Karen Lewis | |
| ASSOCIATE EDITOR | Shaun Martin |
| COPY EDITOR | Tazmen Hansen |
| WRITER | Taylor Scisco |
| DESIGN AND LAYOUT | Joanne Ferguson |
| COVER DESIGN | Laura J. Gibson |
| Chris Wilson, 29 & Company | |
| RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS | Kelly Lombardino |
Copyright © 2013 Center for Creative Leadership.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.
CCL No. 455
ISBN No. 978-1-60491-156-5
CENTER FOR CREATIVE LEADERSHIP
AN IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOK
Interpersonal Savvy
Building and Maintaining Solid Working Relationships
THE IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOK SERIES
This series of guidebooks draws on the practical knowledge that the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) has generated since its inception in 1970. The purpose of the series is to provide leaders with specific advice on how to complete a developmental task or solve a leadership challenge. In doing that, the series carries out CCL’s mission to advance the understanding, practice, and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide.
CCL’s unique position as a research and education organization supports a community of accomplished scholars and educators in a community of shared knowledge. CCL’s knowledge community holds certain principles in common, and its members work together to understand and generate practical responses to the ever-changing circumstances of leadership and organizational challenges.
In its interactions with a richly varied client population, in its research into the effect of leadership on organizational performance and sustainability, and in its deep insight into the workings of organizations, CCL creates new, sound ideas that leaders all over the world put into action every day. We believe you will find the Ideas Into Action Guidebooks an important addition to your leadership toolkit.
Table of Contents
Interpersonal Savvy in the Workplace
How to Develop Interpersonal Savvy
Your Behaviors—Too Much of a Good Thing?
Your Red Flag Journal and How to Use It
It’s Not a Trick—It’s Real Life
IN BRIEF
Interpersonal savvy is the ability to build and maintain solid working relationships with your superiors, colleagues, and direct reports. It helps you make the most out of everyday interactions, using skills such as good listening, empathy, sincerity, and teamwork. Your behaviors shape how others perceive you in the workplace, and a firm knowledge of interpersonal savvy will allow you to best shape those perceptions to achieve the greatest results. Self-awareness of the positive qualities you want to demonstrate, combined with specific actions to implement those qualities, will lead to positive outcomes in how others view and interact with you. One thing to watch out for is taking a good quality too far—for example, letting your self-respect become arrogance. Being on the lookout for these scenarios and taking the time to implement more positive alternatives will further help to raise your interpersonal skills. By continuing to develop interpersonal savvy, whether you think you have the skills or not, you will become a more thoughtful, friendly, approachable, and trustworthy leader who can achieve results.
What Is Interpersonal Savvy?
Interpersonal savvy is your ability to build and maintain solid working relationships with colleagues, superiors, and direct reports. It’s a capacity made up of several interlocking skills, such as the following:
• good listening
• empathy
• honesty
• sincerity
• a strong orientation toward teamwork
• trustworthiness
• supportiveness
• a willingness to share responsibility
We all like to believe we possess these qualities, and everyone does have the capacity for interpersonal savvy. The challenge is building that capacity so others see that you have these qualities. You must be a good listener, an honest person, sincere, and trustworthy. This is especially important as you transition into positions of greater authority, where more people will look to you for leadership.
Daily behaviors shape people’s perceptions of you, and those perceptions determine their feelings about you. Interpersonal savvy allows you to better navigate and understand those perceptions and to build trust with your colleagues, which will in turn improve their (and your) efforts in the organization. This kind of open behavior toward others can be intimidating for you and your colleagues, which is why it’s even more important that you exhibit such behavior. Your example shows colleagues that your workplace is a safe place to be patient, honest, and straightforward when communicating.
Throughout this guidebook, we use the terms savvy, skills, and behaviors somewhat interchangeably, though technically these words have different definitions. We view these terms as linked: developing your interpersonal skills will lead to tangible behaviors that you can exhibit in the workplace, and continually exhibiting such behaviors will lead to an