The Importance of Quick Connections at Work

Leaders need to build trust — it's foundational to productivity, collaboration, and thriving. We often heard in our research about the positive impact trusted leaders have on their teams. Consider your own experience. Remember the feeling of starting a new job or working for a new leader? You may have felt nervous about how you were being judged, making you more cautious about opening up. Now, imagine that your new leader took proactive steps to spend time with you and get to know your values and perspective. Imagine they shared details about themselves too so you could get a better sense of who they are. That type of effort to build a quick connection would help you feel more comfortable, helping you do your best work more quickly.

Leaders who take a proactive approach to swiftly building connections see a tangible impact on performance. But, we also learned that building these quick connections has additional benefits for leaders and teams.

Reducing Misconceptions

Building quick connections helps leaders reduce the risk of misconceptions. People generally make quick judgments about others and their behavior if they have limited information. These judgments are often influenced by stereotypes and can be harmful to future working relationships. A new team member, for example, can judge their new leader based on race, gender, or even something like similar mannerisms to someone they know. These snap judgments can distort perceptions of trustworthiness and intent.

Source: Photo by Mizuno K / Pexels

However, if a leader builds connections quickly with new team members, they can mitigate these misconceptions. Deeper interactions, including sharing intentions and values early on, allow team members to see the leader as an individual rather than a stereotype. Similarly, when a leader gets to know their team, they are less likely to bring bias to the relationship and foster an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding.

Improving Communication

Quick connections can also help leaders improve communication — specifically through a reduction in miscommunication. This is especially important for remote and distributed teams or where nonverbal cues are absent (think email or Slack). Have you ever received an email that came across as rude or confusing, but you found out later the person's tone was different than you thought? This type of miscommunication is common when you don't know the person you are communicating with.

Building swift connections allows leaders to understand their team members' communication styles. It helps the leader better interpret the tone and intention of a message. Building connections early also allows the team to learn how the leader communicates, reducing misunderstandings and creating more effective collaboration.

Reducing Conflict

Finally, building strong relationships quickly can help prevent conflict. When team members know and trust each other, they are more likely to give each other the benefit of the doubt. For example, if someone misses a deadline, the team who understands their usual reliability is more likely to assume some extenuating circumstance rather than laziness. Investing in relationship-building creates a culture of open communication, trust, and mutual support, reducing overall team conflict.

Key Next Steps

The science is clear — building relationship is critical to creating effective teams. And, building connections doesn't have to be a long, slow process. Trust can be built quickly through brief, intentional conversations.

To get started, set aside time to get to know your team members — with intention. Your team will thank you and your team results will benefit!