Connection: A Foundation of Leadership

One consistent theme in the research is that human beings connect through shared experience, not just conversation.

Studies of interpersonal synchrony have shown that when people move or act together in time, they are subsequently more likely to report greater affiliation and behave more cooperatively(think supporters singing together, army marching in synchrony or rowers rowing in time to one another). A meta-analysis of 60 experiments found a moderate positive effect of synchrony on both prosocial attitudes and behaviours.

The biological explanation is more complex than the popular idea that bonding is simply caused by a rise in dopamine or oxytocin. Systems associated with reward, stress regulation, endogenous opioids and social salience are likely to contribute in different ways. What is clearer at a behavioural level is that doing something together can change how people relate to one another.

This is one reason meaningful shared experiences matter inside teams. Working through a difficult problem together, preparing for an important event, responding collectively to a setback or celebrating an achievement can all contribute to connection.

The important point is not that difficulty itself creates strong teams. Plenty of difficult environments damage relationships. What matters is what happens within the experience: whether people face the situation together, whether they depend on one another and whether they recognise the contribution others have made.

Sport provides a visible example. Training, competing and travelling together create repeated opportunities for shared attention and interdependence. Even small behaviours can reinforce a sense of belonging.

Research in professional basketball examined physical interactions such as high-fives, fist bumps, hugs and pats between NBA teammates. Greater early-season touch was associated with greater cooperation and stronger individual and team performance later in the season, even after accounting for factors including early performance and preseason expectations.

The study cannot establish that touch itself caused improved performance. What it does illustrate is the role small affiliative behaviours can play within cooperative relationships.

The equivalent behaviours will look different in other environments. A colleague making time to speak after a difficult meeting, a leader recognising somebody else's contribution, or someone choosing to sit with a person after a mistake can all communicate something similar.

People are continually gathering information about whether they belong, whether others value them and whether it is safe to contribute honestly.

That becomes particularly important for leadership.

Connection can deepen when people are able to reveal uncertainty without immediately feeling that their status has fallen. Research on self-disclosure has repeatedly demonstrated relationships between appropriate disclosure, interpersonal closeness and liking.

Leaders do not need to share every concern or make vulnerability performative. But if a leader always appears certain, never admits when they are wrong and always has the answer, it can make it much harder for others to admit when they don’t.

In high-performance environments this can become a practical problem because organisations need early access to incomplete information. Medical staff may be uncertain about how a player will respond. Analysts may have evidence that conflicts with an existing view. Coaches may have concerns that are difficult to quantify. Executives may recognise risks before they can fully prove them.

If uncertainty is interpreted as weakness, people may wait until the evidence becomes stronger before speaking. By then, valuable time may already have been lost.

Vulnerability creates an opportunity for connection, but what happens in response to it may be equally important.

Relationship research describes the concept of perceived responsiveness: whether someone feels understood, valued and cared for by the person they are communicating with. Listening is an important part of this process because it allows somebody to understand what another person is trying to communicate before moving towards judgement or action.

Leaders can miss this by moving too quickly towards a solution.

Someone raises a problem and the instinct is to fix it. Someone expresses uncertainty and an answer is provided. Someone describes a difficult situation, and the conversation immediately moves to an action plan.

Sometimes that is required. But if people repeatedly feel that they have been answered before they have been understood, they may become less likely to contribute openly.

High-quality listening is therefore not passive leadership. It can improve the information available to the organisation. Understanding someone does not require agreeing with them. It means giving their perspective enough attention to understand what sits underneath it before deciding what to do.

This becomes particularly important where expertise is distributed across different functions.

One of the risks in complex organisations is that every department can be right within its own area and the organisation can still make the wrong decision.

A medical team can make the correct medical judgement. A performance team can make the correct physical judgement. A coach can make the correct football judgement. An analyst can make the correct tactical judgement.

The organisational decision depends on connecting those perspectives and ensuring they are directed towards the wider vision of the organisation.

That requires more than capable specialists. It requires relationships strong enough for people to challenge each other without disagreement becoming personal, and enough mutual respect for expertise to carry greater weight without becoming unquestionable.

This is where interdependence matters.

Research involving more than 7,500 teams has shown that different forms of interdependence influence how teams function. How people depend on each other matters. When the work itself requires people to rely on one another, it tends to improve how the team functions. When success is genuinely shared, it can also strengthen cohesion.

That is different from just working for the same organisation.

Strong teams develop an understanding that individual success is connected to the quality of the collective. People begin to think less about protecting their own department and more about improving the decision that sits above all of them.

Leaders have a significant influence over whether that happens.

They shape what occurs when somebody challenges a senior person. They determine whether meetings encourage genuine contribution or merely confirm decisions that have already been made. They influence whether success is attributed to individuals or recognised as a collective process. They decide whether mistakes are examined for learning or primarily used to assign blame.

Over time, those experiences teach people how safe it is to participate fully.

Connection is unlikely to develop consistently if it is left entirely to chance.

There is value in deliberately manufacturing an environment in which the beginnings of connection can form.

That might involve bringing people together to work on a genuine problem rather than just presenting information to them. It might mean deliberately mixing disciplines, creating shared responsibilities or putting people into situations where they must understand how somebody else's expertise contributes to the wider objective.

An away day can have value. A shared challenge can have value. Eating together, travelling together, exercising together or solving something difficult together can all create opportunities for people to see one another differently.

The mistake is expecting the intervention itself to create a lasting culture.

Its role may be to light the fire.

Whether that connection develops depends on what happens when people return to their normal environment. Does the person you connected with listen when you disagree? Does the senior leader who talked about openness genuinely welcome challenge? Does someone support you when a decision goes wrong? Do departments continue sharing information when the pressure increases?

Leaders can manufacture some of the initial conditions for connection. They can put people in environments where shared attention, shared experiences and interdependence are more likely to occur.

What they cannot manufacture is genuine trust.

That must be reinforced through repeated experience.

In high-performing organisations, relationships should therefore not sit alongside performance as a separate cultural objective. They form part of the system that allows people to communicate honestly, connect expertise and make better decisions together.