The Importance of Prioritizing Friendships as a Leader

Are you intentionally creating time for friendships, or are you prioritizing work above all else?

Research shows that quality friendships, friendships that inspire you to become a better version of yourself, improve your health on all levels. Prioritizing friendships may be a critical component of your ability to be the best leader you can be that you are underestimating.

According to scienceofpeople.com, “One of the longest-running human studies on happiness has shown that relationships are the number one key indicator of joy and happiness. 

Beginning in 1939, the Harvard Study of Adult Development started collecting data on the lives of 268 Harvard graduates and 456 Boston men. 

For the last 80 years, researchers accumulated data from physical examinations, and completed medical histories, interviews, and questionnaires. Their goal? To uncover ‘what psychosocial variables and biological processes from earlier in life predict health and well-being in late life.’

At the end of the day, the only factor they could correlate with happiness was the quality of their human relationships. Close friendships, familial connections, and marriages surpassed other variables like social class, genetics, I.Q., fame, or fortune.”

As we approach Valentine’s Day, why not use this as an opportunity to have some fun and be intentional about cultivating and celebrating your quality friendships?

For example, I’m observing Galentine’s Day, a day for women to celebrate their friendships with their female friends, by having dinner with a fantastic group of women I’ve connected with through the Chief network. We meet virtually every month for two hours to challenge and support each other not only on our professional situations and aspirations, but to be vulnerable and honest with ourselves and each other so that we can get clear on what we most want in life and then to take steps to create it. 

So, if you are a business leader having the thought that you don’t have time for friendships, think about the not only relational impact of this view, but also the impact that not creating time for friendships may be having on your professional growth. 

Secret Galentine

Here’s a fun game my Galentines and I are playing and I invite you to create your own version of this, whether it be with your Galentines, work friends, personal relationships, or any version in-between:

I call it Secret Galentine. Similar to Secret Santa, all players commit to giving one gift to their Secret Galentine. In our game, we have committed to giving our Secret Galentine a book of our choosing at an upcoming in-person dinner we’ve planned. It is entirely up to the gift giver why they are choosing this particular book for their Secret Galentine. It could be a topic that reminds them of their Secret Galentine, a favorite book of their own that has inspired them, etc. In our group, we recently did a review of our 2022 together and set intentions for what we will create in 2023.  So, leaning into what our Secret Galentine, or our group overall, aspires to create this year is a welcome option to inspire our book selection!

Choose one person from the group to lead and be responsible for randomly choosing the Secret Galentines and letting each person know who their Secret Galentine is.  This person can pick names out of a hat at random or leverage an online spin-the-wheel type of tool. 

Next, the leader emails each person letting them know who their Galentine is. Each person then purchases their book for their Galentine. We have also committed to writing an inscription on the inside cover of the book for our Galentine. This makes the experience that much more special for the gift giver and receiver! 

This is a relatively inexpensive way to not only cultivate your friendships, but to tap into other benefits and increase professional skill sets like enhanced learning, creative thinking, and interpersonal skills to name a few. So, if you are a workaholic that thinks you don’t have time for friendships, I invite you to reframe your thinking. 

Are you willing to commit to reach out to one friend this month and intentionally create time to authentically connect with them? When will you do this?

I’d love to hear your perspective when it comes to cultivating quality friendships and the impact it has on you as a leader. Please share your thoughts in the comments!

If you are realizing you struggle with prioritizing creating and maintaining friendships in your life or would like some support to breakthrough other leadership challenges you are facing, please book a free breakthrough session with me here. I look forward to supporting you to create a life you love and to be the leader you have the power to be. 

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash