6 Tips for Better Business Relationships

Wherever you are in your career journey, building better work relationships will enhance both your personal and professional satisfaction levels. Below, you can find 6 tips that will be useful in this regard.

1. Be Honest

Honesty is a very important trait that will help you build good relationships with your colleagues, supervisors, and clients. Avoid presenting yourself as someone much more capable than you are. Do not make promises you cannot keep. Be sure to follow through on what you have promised. If you are reliable and honest, you will earn the respect of those around you.

2. Have Positive Body Language

Smile, stand tall, and make eye contact with people. Do not check your emails while talking to someone. Act in a way that shows you are interested in what the other person is saying. Communication is not just about words; body language is important in relationships between people. Therefore, make sure you are displaying a friendly demeanor and that your body language suggests you are an approachable person.

3. Avoid Gossip

Avoiding bad habits is just as important as having good ones. Do not make negative comments about those around you, and do not join in when a group of employees is gossiping about a colleague. Do not talk about people's private lives or situations they would not like to be disclosed. Participating in and spreading gossip can lead others to view you as untrustworthy, which makes it difficult to build better work relationships.

4. Socialize

You do not have to meet with your colleagues outside of work every week, but it is not nice to decline every invitation. You should also participate in company events.

5. Be Kind

Do everything you do with kindness. Asking someone for help can be difficult for many people. When you agree to help someone else, do so with kindness and humility. You are not obligated to respond positively to every help request from your colleagues, and you may not always be available. However, constantly declining every request can lead others to think negatively about you. Do not be completely closed off to offering support. Politely decline the things you cannot assist with.

6. Be Helpful to Everyone

Your priority is, of course, to satisfy your own manager and clients. However, it can be beneficial to step outside your department occasionally to build relationships beyond your existing network. On days when your workload is light, see if you can do something for people in other departments with whom you do not communicate daily.