Relationships Are How Work Works

Editor’s note: This piece sits within the Cultivated library on leadership, communication, and human systems. It explores relationships as the underlying medium through which work, influence, and value actually move.

Relationships Are How Work Works

Relationships are how work works.
And good relationships are how good work happens.

We don’t build relationships with organisations.
We build them with individuals.

In practice, relationship power — the ability to get things done with and through others — is the most effective form of power in any organisation.
Not hierarchy.
Not process.
Not policy.

Relationships are the substrate on which all systems run.

Why Relationships Matter

With strong relationships, we can:

• Ask for help
• Be vulnerable
• Give and receive challenge
• Move people into motion
• Have difficult conversations without damage
• Create psychological safety
• Unlock discretionary effort

When you truly know someone, you can help them achieve their goals while helping the business achieve its own. You understand how to stretch, support, and challenge them without breaking trust.

Most organisations struggle with trust and psychological safety not because of frameworks — but because relationships have been under-invested.

Trust is built in time.
And time must be prioritised.

Seeing People

You cannot build a relationship with someone you never really see.

This sounds obvious, yet many leaders hide behind dashboards, meetings, and artefacts.

Relationships require presence — physical or digital, but intentional.

Seeing people means noticing them beyond output.
It means recognising mood, energy, ambition, fatigue, curiosity.

Seeing is the first act of leadership.

Listening as Relationship Infrastructure

Listening is the greatest compliment you can give someone.

Not the tactical, nod-and-paraphrase version.
The deeper act of attention that says: you matter.

Listening requires patience, openness, and a willingness to be changed by what you hear.

As Stephen Covey wrote:

“Listening involves patience, openness, and the desire to understand—highly developed qualities of character.”

Listening is not a communication technique.
It is a relational approach.

People Are More Than Their Work

One of the most underused leadership moments is the 1:2:1.

Not as a performance review.
But as a doorway into the whole person.

Two areas matter deeply:

Life ambitions
What do they want from life?
How does work fit — or conflict — with that vision?

Life capabilities
What skills and passions exist beyond the job description?
What could the organisation benefit from if it made space for those capabilities?

I once managed a coach who was also a gifted graphic designer.
He didn't mention it — until a better relationship existed.
By inviting that ability into the work, he grew, the team benefited, and the business gained unexpected value.

Job titles are narrow.
Humans are not.

The Quiet Power of Knowing Your People

Work is not only about keeping the organisation alive.
It is about creating a place that enriches the lives inside it.

When people feel seen, understood, and supported, they invest more of themselves.

When they leave, the relationship often remains — forming the true network that careers and organisations quietly depend upon.

Relationships compound.
Neglect compounds too.

1:2:1s as Relationship Infrastructure

1:2:1s are not HR rituals.
They are relational architecture.

They surface ambitions, frustrations, hidden talents, and subtle signals.
The best managers know their people well enough to help them navigate careers and life, while still delivering outcomes for the organisation.

Employees who build relationships do the same.
They gain influence, support, and momentum.
They move work forward not through authority, but through connection.

Final Reflection

Relationships are how work works.
They require time, attention, and care.

Listen.
See people.
Appreciate the whole human.
Build trust deliberately.

Do this, and teams move.
Organisations breathe.
Careers unfold with meaning.

Systems matter.
But relationships are the living tissue inside them.