One sign of success in a given relationship is when a person feels known. When someone is relationally intelligent, they cultivate relationships where people feel understood at a deep level. The path to helping a person feel known is not necessarily easy to do, but it is simple in concept. In order to do this, there’s one primal requirement: Be interested in people.
People feel known when we strongly identify with a distinct part of who they are, or when we recognize a unique facet of their humanity.
People feel understood when we help them express, or step into, more of who they are as a human being.
To increase our relational intelligence, we must learn how to become more interested in others by exploring how to identify aspects of who they are that are distinct from anyone else. This doesn’t mean we make a person feel FULLY known in just one moment, because that takes a lifetime to do. However, becoming relationally intelligent does involve getting better at moving people closer toward feeling known in a short window of time.
Though we cannot see and discover every facet of a human being in a passing moment, we can recognize, and strongly identify with, a part of their essence that is unique to them.
No matter where your interaction falls on the spectrum (that which ranges from meeting someone new in a social context, to working with a team of volunteers, to engaging in a mentoring relationship, to trying to strengthen a friendship, or to our daily interactions at work), being interested in people is a critical component of RI that can advance relationships forward.
Human beings long to be known, and most of us live our lives without consistently experiencing this as a pervasive reality. We cannot control how others do this with us, but we can take responsibility with how we pursue others as we seek to help them feel known.
Along the way, we'll be surprised at how our influence on others expands.
Relational Intelligence
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Create Movement. Remember to Love.
- Steve Saccone
- Los Angeles, CA, United States
- Steve is a leadership catalyst, writer, and creativity consultant. He works with Mosaic, a spiritual community in Los Angeles who strives to empower creativity of the human spirit, as well as cultivate relational and spiritual health. Steve also works as a Field Advisor for the Gallup Organization, serves as Director of Protege, a 2-year Global Leadership Program, and is an Adjunct Professor and guest lecturer for numerous universities.