Organizations spend enormous amounts of time developing emerging leaders.
They invest in leadership programs, mentoring, conferences, professional associations and training designed to prepare the next generation of leaders to succeed.
But there is one important skill that often gets overlooked:
How to build professional relationships.
We tend to assume people will figure that part out on their own.
They don’t always.
"Go Network" Isn’t Training
An emerging leader may be sent to a chamber event, industry conference or professional gathering with the instruction:
"Go network."
But what does that actually mean?
Who should they meet?
What should they ask?
How do they determine whether a conversation is worth continuing?
How do they follow up?
How do they provide value before asking for something?
And perhaps most importantly:
How does a professional relationship actually develop?
Simply putting someone in a room full of people doesn’t teach them how to answer those questions.
It only puts them in the room.
The Goal Isn’t More Connections
We live in a world where making connections has never been easier.
An emerging professional can connect with hundreds of people online without ever having a meaningful conversation with any of them.
Organizations shouldn’t be measuring networking development by how many business cards someone collects, how many LinkedIn connections they make, or how many events they attend.
The better question is:
Can this person build trust with another human being?
That requires a different set of skills.
It requires learning how to listen.
How to ask better questions.
How to understand another person’s world.
How to identify common ground.
How to follow up.
How to keep a commitment.
And eventually, how to determine whether a relationship is worth investing in.
Emerging Leaders Need Practice, Not Just Exposure
This is where organizations have an opportunity.
Instead of simply sending emerging professionals into networking environments, teach them how to navigate relationships once they’re there.
Give them a framework.
Teach them how to start a genuine conversation without immediately trying to sell something.
Teach them to become curious about the person sitting across the table.
Teach them to ask:
"Who do you need to meet?"
And then teach them something even more important:
"How can I help?"
That’s where networking starts to become relationship-building.
Relationships Take Time
The strongest professional relationships rarely begin with a transaction.
They develop through repeated interactions.
A conversation becomes a second conversation.
An introduction becomes another introduction.
Someone follows through.
Someone remembers what you said.
Someone calls when they don’t need anything.
Trust begins to develop.
Eventually, something much more valuable than a connection exists:
a relationship.
That’s particularly important for emerging leaders because their professional reputation is being built long before they realize it.
People are watching how they communicate.
Whether they show up.
Whether they follow through.
Whether they listen.
Whether they remember.
Whether they are genuinely interested in other people or simply looking for what they can get from them.
The Opportunity for Organizations
The mistake isn’t failing to give emerging leaders networking opportunities.
The mistake is assuming exposure will automatically create relationship-building skills.
It won’t.
Organizations that want to develop the next generation of leaders need to teach them how to build the human relationships that will ultimately support their careers, their teams and their organizations.
Because leadership isn’t built through a network of names.
It’s built through trust between people.
At Rob Thomas Networking, that’s the work I care about: helping professionals move beyond simply making connections and learn how to build relationships that create lasting value.
Because the goal isn’t to know everybody.
It’s to know who matters and become someone who matters to them, too.