Managers: Building Relationship Intelligence

As a new manager, your intent is almost always to be helpful — but your impact doesn’t always land that way. In this episode, Leslie Ferry explores why communication breakdowns often aren’t about clarity or effort, but about unspoken differences in how people naturally approach work.

We unpack how work style differences — like people-first vs. task-first thinking — quietly create friction when they go unrecognized, and why many managers end up stuck in what Leslie calls the Anxiety vs. Resentment Gap. The episode discusses Relationship Intelligence as the skill that allows leaders to read how their actions land, adjust intentionally, and lead without burning themselves out.

This conversation is less about changing your style — and more about learning to see it clearly.

Key Discussion Points

• The Communication Gap: Why leading the way you like to be led often creates unintended friction.
• Mindset Orientation: How people-first and task-first approaches influence how direction is received.
• The Anxiety vs. Resentment Gap: How misjudging when to provide clarity versus autonomy creates disengagement.
• Relationship Intelligence: The skill of accurately reading how your intent lands — and why it’s foundational to effective leadership.
• The Reflection Loop: How observation and reflection turn “human skills” into something you can actually build.

Featured Resource

Manager Quick Pulse
Curious where your Manager Career Edge stands right now? This short pulse helps you identify your current leadership motions — and where judgment and Relationship Intelligence may need more attention.
👉 Take the Quick Pulse: https://myzandra.ai/questionnaire

Transcript

Welcome back to The Career Edge. In our last episode, we've talked about one of the biggest mindset shifts new managers face, moving from being the one who does the work to the one who leads it. Once you step into that role, many managers run into a frustrating wall. You're trying to be helpful, you're clear in your own mind, and yet your team seems confused, disengaged, or even frustrated.

Often the issue, it is an effort or intent, is that you're communicating in a way that makes sense to you. And you may not realize that your team may be operating in a different work language. If you don't understand the different work styles of the people you're leading, your best intentions can quietly create roadblocks. To bridge that gap, we have to look beneath the surface of behavior.

and understand how people naturally approach their work. Take mindset orientation, for example. Some people are people-first thinkers. They naturally consider the human impact of decisions first. Morale, workload, relationship impacts, and team harmony. Others are task-first thinkers. They focus on outcomes, deadlines, efficiency, return on investment.

and forward progress. Neither approach is right or wrong. They are both critically important.

But here's where friction shows up. If a task-first manager delivers a detailed project plan without acknowledging the human impact, a people-first team member may feel invisible. If a people-first manager focus on emotions and alignment without clear milestones, a task-first team member, they may feel unsure of how to move forward. Without relationship intelligence,

These differences don't get named and people end up talking past one another, even if they're aligned on goals. So how do you stop speaking a different language from your team? You build that relationship intelligence, the ability to accurately lead how your actions land on others through three simple intentional motions. First is observation. Instead of assuming you know what your team needs,

Become a student of their reactions. Notice the questions they ask. They are actually pure gems of the data that you need. Be sure to actively listen, not just to words, but to what's not being said, tone of voice, hesitation, body language, and energy levels. And three is curious questioning. Ask thoughtful questions that test your assumptions.

And go so far as to ask, what other information would be helpful to you to move forward? This isn't being nice. It's about gathering the data you need to lead effectively.

When managers don't have this data, they often fall into what I think of as the anxiety versus resentment gap. Your strengths can unintentionally create friction. If you're highly efficient and move quickly, your speed may feel dismissive or blunt to someone who needs a bit more time to process. If you're detail-oriented and thorough, your precision may feel like a

of trust to someone who values autonomy. Here's the pattern. If you provide space to someone who needs clarity, you can create anxiety. Provide details to someone who needs autonomy and you create resentment. The intent is positive. The impact isn't. And that gap is where many new managers get stuck.

So this is where growth actually takes place. There are three steps you should do. Design your approach, act, and then reflect. Not to judge yourself, but to learn. Ask, did the outcome that I intended happen? If not, don't just try harder. Analyze why. Did you misread a work style element?

Do you need more data about that individual? Did you assume sameness where there's a difference?

This reflective loop is how human skills become something you can build and refine. It's also the foundation of what we've built at Brize and with Zandra, helping people decode these human signals so leadership becomes more intentional, not more exhausting. If you take just one thing from this episode, make it this. This week, pick one team member and notice one thing about

How did they respond when you gave direction? Do they ask clarifying questions or nod and move on? Do they engage more when you provide context or when you outline next steps? And then don't change anything yet. There's nothing to be fixed. Just notice. And then observe again to validate patterns. Relationship intelligence doesn't start with adjustments. It starts with awareness.

And that awareness is what creates your true Career Edge. Thanks for listening. I'll see you on the next episode of the Career Edge podcast.