Understanding and Investing in Your Relator Talent

In this Theme Thursday Season 4 webcast, Jim Collison, Gallup's Director of Talent Sourcing, and Maika Leibbrandt, Senior Workplace Consultant, talk about Relator.

Those exceptionally talented in the Relator theme are known for their attraction toward long-term deep interpersonal connections, as well as their ability to strengthen existing connections. Always driving toward better understanding and increased time with their closest colleagues and friends, Relators are socially intimate.

If you're a Relator, chances are the value you bring to a group will be noticed in the relationships that exist within that team or circle. At its best, Relator encourages authenticity between people. This talent theme serves as the social "glue" between team members. A great service you can offer is to help others know and value individuals. Because you cut through the surface conversations, you are uniquely able to see others for who they truly are. You can use this to benefit everyone by reminding others of the context of talent you have on your team. Consider each person's history as an opportunity for you to remind them and each other what is great about the colleagues they trust and know.

For those with Relator as a dominant theme, invest in this talent by spending more time with your closest trusted circle. There is no limit to how well you can know someone, and you'll experience your own boost in energy when you get to recharge with your friends. Take time to get to know important partners. You'll be better and faster with people once you feel a sincere connection with someone. Look for opportunities to go the extra mile for someone you're close to.

As a Relator, it might be important for you to ask for activities and involvement that offer the change to build a mutual bond with others. Perhaps this is sharing a challenge, a goal, or just a travel itinerary. At first glance, this might appear to be an unwelcome encouragement to do more social things, purposeful collaboration and social bonding have the potential to be a great benefit to your partnerships you'll need to rely upon in the future.

Unless it comes from your other talent themes, you can let go of the need to be excellent at small talk. If rapport-building feels unimportant or uncomfortable, it could just be due to how much more ease, excellence and enjoyment you find in speaking with people you already know well. Relator is often misread initially as being exceptionally talented in relationships of all sorts. But in truth, it's socially selective. It's okay to be picky with where you spend your social energy, as long as you're spending it somewhere.

Working With Relator …

If you're working with someone talented in the Relator theme, expect warmth and openness amongst people in their inner circle. Be ready for cautious evaluation of potential new relationships. They may be slow to warm up to new friends. Know this comes from great care they take in maintaining and elevating those people they do consider friends. Expect loyalty, authenticity, and the desire to cut through surface-level interactions.

Recognize and celebrate the benefit their longevity of connection provides to you and your team. Are there clients, experts, or students from this person's past who are important today to your team's goals? Chances are, they're here because of a Relator.

Generosity is often a hallmark of this theme. Recognize when this person goes out of his or her way for someone else.

If you're this person's manager or leader, you can help him or her stretch by getting to know the talents of colleagues. Challenge him or her to spot potential in others and name it. His or her lens for truth and honesty will help spot what true promise in others. Partner with him or her by spending time in his or her favorite setting. If this person thrives one-on-one, then show up one-on-one. Perhaps he or she really lights up when the climate involves art, sports, animals, kids, or nature. Being there with them will translate to being there for them.

If Relator is one of your Dominant Themes, invest in it this week through the following challenge items:

• Put up your friend antenna: Name someone who might be a potential best friend. Reach out and get to know them.
• Shower some appreciation on someone you admire. Recognize someone you find especially "important" in your circle of trusted friends.
• Get to know your manager. Initiate a conversation that features both of you expanding on your out-of-work lives.

If Relator is not one of your Dominant Themes, invest in it this week through the following challenge items:

• Which themes help you develop trust and intimacy? What behaviors showcase this?
• Deeper connection: In a conversation this week, take a deep breath before you answer a question. Use this breath to clear any fronts or show you may have built up. Then answer from your heart, rather than your head.