Welcome to For Leaders, your go-to source for essential leadership insights and perspectives shaping today's world.

In this week’s newsletter:

• Strategic Summaries: Key insights and takeaways on the importance of relationship building

• The For Leaders Podcast: Radial CEO Laura Ritchey

• Words of Wisdom: A powerful leadership quote to inspire

• Leaders’ Library: What we’re reading this week

A curated community of leaders.

Strategic Summaries

A weekly roundup of the most interesting, useful and thought-provoking articles to help you be a better leader. This week we’re focusing on relationship building.

An achievement mindset. This article delves into the fundamental role relationship building plays in leadership preparedness. 

Our take: Forming strong bonds with your team goes a lot further than simply having better relationships. It’s an important skill that leads to trust, accountability, and productivity.

One powerful strategy is asking insightful questions during regular feedback sessions. This personal approach helps create a sense of partnership in addressing business challenges. 

For example, when an employee has developed a proposal, instead of telling them what is right or wrong about it, try asking: What considerations went into this initially and as you developed your final recommendation?

Key takeaway: By providing consistent, insightful support, leaders develop trust and an achievement mindset within their team. 

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Focus on growth. Forbes gives 11 tips to help leaders build stronger business relationships. 

Our take: 11 different leaders talk about what is important when building relationships in the business world.

Focusing on growth is a good place to start, as both individuals and businesses benefit. Is there a way you can help the other person grow? Can you offer ideas or past experiences that can help their business expand?

Having a mindset of helping someone else grow can be beneficial to the giver, too. As the contributor Linda Martin says, “Givers gain; it is that simple.”  

Key takeaways: Business relationships are like currency – the more and better quality ones you have, the wealthier you are. Finding ways to make them a win-win is appealing for the person you’re reaching out to, but can also benefit you. 

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Compliment, congratulate, console. Jesse Itzler talks about how to build authentic relationships in three minutes per day. 

Our take: It takes less than a minute to write and send a quick message to someone. Itzler has learned over the years that taking that minute to reach out to his network is invaluable. He recommends doing this three times per day.

And it adds up. He is constantly thinking of people he can reach out to and uses this template for the types of messages he sends: a compliment, a congratulation or a consolation. 

Itzler says that each of the people you contact will think differently about you, they will remember you, and it can give you an unspoken permission to communicate with them in the future. 

Key takeaway: Even though sending a quick message is easy, if done regularly, it’s surprisingly effective for building and maintaining authentic relationships. This sounds like a habit worth mastering.

🎧 For Leaders: Radial CEO Laura Ritchey

Laura Ritchey has moved from one leadership position to another at Radial, a leader in eCommerce logistics solutions. 

Whether in her previous role as COO or her new title as CEO, she leads by modeling what she wants to see in her team.  

In this episode, Laura shares key insights on:

• Her strategic time management approach to daily decisions

• How she uses AI to enhance customer service and employee experiences

• The cultural pillars she has built to prioritize her people, clients, and performance

Words of Wisdom

One weekly, impactful quote for leaders.

Leaders' Library

Every week, we share an interesting long-form piece of content to contemplate.

Today, we’re reading the book Leadership Is a Relationship: How to Put People First in the Digital World by Michael S. Erwin and Willys DeVoll.

Relationship-based leadership is a challenge in our digital world. We’re seeing people more frequently on screens than in person, we’re busier than ever before, and we can be ultra focused on our own problems.

Authors Erwin and DeVoll have set out to provide an antidote to the modern world: Focusing on relationships. 

They use stories throughout the book to illustrate ways that people have been able to put relationships first and offer countless strategies and tips for readers to do the same. They argue that by putting others first, you have the best chance of succeeding.

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you next week with more powerful leadership insights and inspiration.