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“Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.” Colossians 3:12-14 (NLT)

The second key principle is relational health. Leadership rises or falls on the quality of relationships. Effective leaders prioritize human connection, not to manipulate but to truly appreciate each person’s gifting and needs. They listen actively, communicate clearly and invest in meaningful, respectful relationships that build trust and collaboration.

Leadership is not just about vision, strategy and execution — it’s about people. At the heart of effective leadership is the ability to build, nurture and sustain healthy relationships. The key is the ability to actively listen to and learn from the people you work with. Relational health influences everything from team trust and communication to long-term organizational culture. When relationships are strong, people thrive. When they are weak or toxic, even the best strategies will struggle to succeed.

Why relational health matters:

1. Trust fuels performance – High-performing teams are built on trust, as discussed in Lesson 9-1. When leaders are relationally healthy — available, consistent and authentic — team members feel safe to share ideas, take risks and grow.

2. Communication improves – Strong relationships remove barriers to communication. Leaders who prioritize connection can more easily navigate difficult conversations, correct misalignment and foster open dialogue.

3. Retention and engagement increase – People don’t just leave companies—they leave unhealthy relationships. Relationally aware leaders build loyalty by seeing, hearing and valuing their people.

4. Emotional intelligence grows – Healthy relationships require self-awareness and emotional regulation. These traits not only strengthen personal leadership but also set the tone for the team.

5. Conflict becomes constructive – Conflict is inevitable, but relationally grounded leaders address it directly and respectfully. They use conflict to build clarity, not division.

Self-reflection questions to consider:

• Am I present and available to my team?

• Do I know what matters most to the people I lead?

• Have I invested time in building trust beyond tasks and performance?

• Am I able to have difficult conversations in a positive and constructive manner?

Relational health is a daily decision. It’s cultivated through listening well, following through on commitments, giving credit and addressing issues promptly with grace. Consider having conversations with staff or team members with no agenda, just to build the connection and relationship. Ask about their goals, challenges and ideas. Listen at least twice as much as you talk. It is always beneficial to find something in common.

Shared Experiences:

·       Can someone share about a person that took real interest in you? How did that make you feel? What did you learn from this?

·       Can someone share how they develop a culture based on relationships throughout the organization?

·       What tools do you use that you think would be helpful to others in your group for creating relational health?

·       How do you build relational health throughout the organization?

Bottom line: Being a believer in Christ and being a leader are relational at their core. The health of your relationships will ultimately determine the strength of your influence. Invest wisely.

Dig Deeper

·       (1)Book: Servant Leadership – A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power & Greatness by Robert K. Greenleaf. This book contains many of his writings, including the essay cited in Lesson 9-1.

·       Article: With 7 Words, the Pilot on Our Delayed Delta Air Lines Flight Won Over a Plane Full of Cranky Passengers Sometimes it doesn’t take much to turn around a bad situation by Jason Aten published in Inc.com

·       Book: Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership: Practicing the Wisdom of Leading by Serving; Revised & Expanded Edition by James W. Sipe and Don M. Frick. This is an excellent book.

·       Book: The Journey To Competitive Advantage Through Servant Leadership: Building The Company Every Person Dreams of Working For And Every President Has a Vision Of Leading by Bill Flint

·       Video: Simon Sinek's Advice presented by Alpha Leaders

·       Video: Servant Leadership by Ken Blanchard presented at the London Business Forum

·       Book: Servant Leadership in Action: How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results, edited by Ken Blanchard and Renee Broadwell

·       Video: The Journey to Competitive Advantage Through Servant Leadership: Speaker Bill Flint at LeaderFest

·       Video: Dare to Serve by Cheryl Bachelder Presenting at TEDxCentennialParkWomen

·       210Leaders Lessons: Lessons 7-3 and 7-4 present the concept of emotional intelligence. These are a portion of the Being People Smart Series.

Below is a sample of writings from Robert Greenleaf on servant leadership.

Servant leaders are motivated by a desire to serve others while self-serving leaders are motivated by power or wealth. “The servant-leader is servant first. … It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. … The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.”

Institutions now play a critical role in caring for people. “This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions – often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.”

To measure the effectiveness of servant leadership, assess the growth and health of those being served. “The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”