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“For years I’ve taught the concept of relational ‘change in your pocket.’”

A thought by John C. Maxwell from his book,  How to Lead When Your Boss Can't (or Won't)   (p. 59). HarperCollins Leadership. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

This is good for all our relationships. Especially our difficult ones.

John says, “When you take time to invest in relational chemistry with your leader, the eventual result will be trust—in other words, relational currency… When you do things that add to the relationship, you increase the change in your pocket. When you do negative things, you spend that change. If you keep doing things that your boss perceives as negative—whether they really are or not—you harm the relationship, and you can eventually spend all your change and bankrupt the relationship.

“People with a lot of history who have invested in relational chemistry build up a lot of change in their pocket. As a result, the relationship can weather many problems or mistakes. Andy Stanley, who is a fantastic leader, said, ‘Loyalty publicly results in leverage privately.’ That means if you earn your leader’s trust over time by giving her public support whenever you can do so in good conscience, then you will earn the right to speak up privately when you disagree. You will have earned change in your pocket giving you a chance to influence her.”

John goes on, “Sales expert and author Les Giblin said, ‘You can’t make the other fellow feel important in your presence if you secretly feel that he is a nobody.’ Likewise, you can’t build a positive relationship with your boss if you secretly disrespect him because of his weaknesses. Everybody has blind spots and weak areas; there is no such thing as a perfect leader. To lead up effectively, you need to learn how to work with the weak spots. Try to focus on the positives, and work around the negatives. To do anything else will only hurt you.”

Our attitude toward what we believe is incompetence can make a difference in how successful we are and can rob us of our relational currency.  So, do you still have some change in your pocket? 

Yes, yes!
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