It’s already mid-year and a good opportunity to check in on the success of your work to-date. So, here’s my first question to help gauge this: How would you gauge the quality of your professional relationships right now? There is often a strong correlation between positive answers here and the success of your initiatives. Let’s peel back the layers with some questions:

1. Up (your leader):

• Is the communication open with a natural back-and-forth?
• To what extent do you know where you stand performance-wise? Do you ask for and get feedback?
• Is there an “elephant in the room” that needs to be discussed?
• With all of these questions, how can you help enable constructive discussions?

2. Up (your leader’s peers):

• To what extent do these leaders see you as competent, engaged, and a team-player[1]?
• Is there one particular leader that you need to develop a better working relationship with? If so, what steps could you begin to take to help improve this?

3. Across (your peers):

• Do not underestimate the importance of these relationships. The higher up you go, the more peer relationships impact your career success.
• I recommend considering the same questions as in item 2. Successful individual and team relationships are essential at the peer level.

4. Down (your direct reports):

• The key question in my mind here: Do your employees know exactly where they stand with you? How clear have you been about setting expectations? And to what extent do you give them timely and clear feedback?
• In my 36 years of corporate experience, I continue to realize that one of the greatest challenges many leaders have is this ability to give solid feedback. If you’re in this category, what you can you do to move yourself forward here? The impact could be huge!

5. Down (third-party providers):

• To what extent do you treat these people as partners versus order-takers? Your better providers will appreciate the partnership and will probably work harder to exceed your expectations.

When it comes to workplace success, I could, for sure, ask you about planning, communicating, executing, etc. But even with these, very often, the relationship dynamic looms large and can make or break success.

The Courage to Say What’s Not Being Said

The assumption behind many of these relationship check-in questions is the ability and the courage to have the necessary conversations. And, often, you will have to initiate it. If it’s a really tough conversation, sit down and plan out the key points. Write them down. Get clear. And then have the conversation. Don’t always wait for others to make the first move. There’s almost always a ball in your court to play. And play it courageously!

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[1] By “team player” I am not referring to a milk toast, pushover mentality. As we like to say: There is an “I” in “teams.” This is not about losing your voice. But it is about the ability to differ successfully. In other words, can you voice your opinion and have an exchange in a way that works to preserve respectful relationship dynamics?