What Is a Relationship?

A relationship is a set of mutual expectations about each other’s future behavior based on past interactions with one another. We have a relationship when we can anticipate each other’s behavior to some degree. When we say we have a “good relationship,” this means that we feel a certain level of comfort with the other person, comfort that is based on this sense of knowing how the other will react. Further, we share confidence that we are both working toward a goal that we have agreed upon or take for granted. That feeling of comfort is often what we mean by the word trust. We “know” what to expect of each other. Our level of trust reflects the degree to which our behavior and the behavior of the other are consistent.

Relationship is by definition an interactive concept. For a relationship to exist, there must be some symmetry in mutual expectations. If I trust you but you don’t trust me, then by definition we don’t have a trusting relationship. If I can anticipate your behavior but you cannot anticipate mine, then a relationship has not yet formed. If I love you but you don’t love me, we may still have a formal transactional relationship, but it is asymmetrical and will likely either progress or end. Symmetry is built within a given culture by what we are taught to expect of each other in the normal social roles we acquire. We know what to expect around gender, around hierarchical relationships, and in the role-based transactions that make up our daily routines. We are taught how to react to each other in these role relations. We call this good manners, civility, and tact.

These learned and prescribed interactive conversational routines are taught to us as we mature. We also learn how much we can trust each other and how open we can be with each other in the many different situations we may face. The degree to which I can trust you, the degree to which you will be open with me, and will respect what I tell you, is prescribed in our culture by the roles we play in our daily transactions. Implicit in those roles is the prescription of how open and how trusting we are supposed to be. If we ask for directions, we expect a truthful response. If we are buying a used car off a lot, we may expect a less truthful conversation. What is often forgotten, however, is that the rules governing civility and tact differ in the different levels of relationship. Let’s look again at the four levels we are defining and then examine the implications in terms of what we mean when we say that Humble Leadership has to operate at Level 2.