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Listen to this week’s podcast episode, Ep.222: Building Meaningful Relationships; The Key to Sustainable Leadership Impact & Longevity, with Anthony Silard, click here to hear it now.

The quiet driver behind long-term leadership success isn’t expertise, it’s the quality of the relationships leaders build and sustain over time. And in this week’s episode of Leading with Integrity, I explored this crucial idea (and many more besides) with Anthony (Tony) Silard, Ph.D. Tony is a Professor of Leadership and Director of the Center for Sustainable Leadership at Luiss Business School. He’s spent decades studying leadership across corporate, nonprofit, and global contexts, with a particular focus on emotion, connection, and more recently loneliness in leadership.

What stood out in our conversation was something fundamental and, for a lot of leaders from Manager to CEO, a bit confronting: it’s the idea that leadership success has far less to do with technical expertise than many assume, and far more to do with who we are as people; how we relate to others.

We explored the role of character, the importance of emotional and social skills, and the often-overlooked issue of loneliness, especially among leaders. But at the heart of it all was a simple, powerful theme: the kind of leadership that lasts is the one built on meaningful relationships.

Early in the conversation, Tony shared a study that followed over 10,000 engineers across more than a decade. The aim was to understand what really drove long-term success and the results were kinda striking…

Only around 14% of their success was attributed to technical expertise. The remaining 85% came down to two factors: personal character and socio-emotional abilities. This gives a data-driven voice to the problem of accidental managers, those people who are promoted for their technical skills and then… I won’t say inevitably, but certainly quite often… are unable to truly succeed in their new role because the skills that gained them the position are completely different to the people skills needed to lead effectively.

That’s an uncomfortable scenario to find yourself in (take it from someone who’s been there!), and it leads to further challenges like imposter experience, low confidence, high stress, potentially career-damaging outcomes when you’re unable to deliver in the way that’s come to be expected of you before.

All of this matters because it challenges a deeply held assumption in many organisations: that if someone is technically strong, they will naturally become an effective leader. In reality, technical skill is often just the entry point. It’s the baseline that gets you in the room, what determines what happens next is something else entirely.

Tony described this as a combination of “private victory” and “public victory.” Private victory relates to character; integrity, honesty, and how a person conducts themselves when no one is watching. Public victory is about how that character shows up in relationships; how someone communicates, builds trust, and connects with others.

You can’t separate the two. A leader who lacks integrity will struggle to build genuine relationships. And without strong relationships, influence becomes fragile at best.

This reframes leadership in a very practical way (and nicely tips its hat to the title of the show: Leading with Integrity! So I’m obviously a fan). It’s not just about what you know OR who you know, or even how you perform individually. It’s about the kind of person you are and how that is experienced by others, day in and day out.

Tony introduced a concept he refers to as “Compassionate, Meaningful, Sustainable Relationships” or ‘CMSRs’. In his view, this is not a soft or secondary part of leadership, it is the job.

He went as far as to say that the primary responsibility of a leader is to develop these kinds of relationships with their teams, and to create an environment where those relationships can form between others as well, which is a shift from how leadership is often framed.

Many leaders still see their role in terms of targets, outputs, and performance management. Those things matter, of course, but they’re outcomes, they’re not the mechanism. The mechanism is relationships.

When people feel understood, supported, and connected, they are far more likely to contribute, collaborate, and perform. When those conditions are missing, even the most capable teams can struggle (again, take it from one who’s seen exactly this scenario play out).

Tony isn’t talking about surface-level rapport or forced team bonding, he’s pointing to something deeper that many leaders overlook or don’t see as important: relationships that are built on genuine care, mutual respect, and consistency over time. The kind of relationship that doesn’t come from a single conversation or initiative, from a token “How are you?” in the hallway, or ‘Pizza Friday’ in the depressingly grey office kitchen. It comes from how a leader shows up, repeatedly, in small moments, what they do to support their people everyday, and how they demonstrate they care.

One of the more sobering parts of the conversation was around the implicit norms that exist in many organisations. On paper, companies may promote balance and well-being. Policies might exist for flexible working, parental leave, or reasonable hours. But the unspoken expectations often tell a different story.

You can leave at 5:30, but it might be noticed.

You can take paternity leave, but it might be quietly judged.

You can take your legally mandated breaks, but the boss might be keeping track.

You can choose not to eat lunch at your desk or not to work through lunch, but there’s probably someone who’ll be unhappy about that (not the cleaner though, they’ll definitely thank you for fewer crumbs in your keyboard).

Over time, these signals shape behaviour. People adjust not to what is said, but to what is rewarded or penalised, what is spoken about by the ‘bosses’ even indirectly. These subtle signals are not always as subtle as people think.

Tony highlighted how this plays out particularly for men, many of whom end up prioritising work at the expense of relationships outside of it. The result is something that doesn’t get talked about enough in leadership conversations: loneliness.

It’s not just about being busy. It’s about becoming socially isolated, often without realising it until much later. This is where leadership and culture intersect. Leaders don’t just operate within these norms, they reinforce or challenge them through their own actions.

When a leader consistently models overwork, even unintentionally, it sets a standard. When they create space for boundaries and connection, it gives others permission to do the same. These choices may seem small in the moment, but they accumulate and shape the kind of environment people experience every day.

Tony’s research into loneliness brings another layer to this conversation. He spoke about the concept of “social convoys” (and he quotes the specific study in the episode so I encourage you to look it up and learn more!). Social convoys are the network of close relationships that travel with us through life. These relationships are not static; they evolve, grow, and sometimes shrink depending on how we invest in them.

What the research shows is that, on average, women tend to maintain stronger and more robust social convoys than men. The implications of this are significant, in one example, Tony referenced findings showing that when a spouse passes away later in life, women are statistically more likely to continue living longer than men in the same situation. One of the key reasons is the presence (or absence) of a strong support network.

While this research isn’t limited to the workplace, it has clear relevance for leadership. If leaders are not building and maintaining meaningful relationships both inside and outside of work they are not just limiting their effectiveness, they may also be impacting their own well-being in ways that aren’t immediately visible.

There’s a tendency to think of loneliness as something that affects others, or as a personal issue rather than a leadership one. But the reality is that leadership roles can, in some cases, increase isolation. The higher someone moves up, the fewer peers they may feel they can speak openly with. And that makes intentional relationship-building even more important.

Across the conversation, a consistent theme emerged: many of the things we associate with strong leadership: decisiveness, expertise, authority, are only part of the picture. What often gets less attention are the qualities that are harder to measure but easier to feel.

Trust. Empathy. Consistency. Character.

These are not abstract ideas, they show up in very practical ways in how leaders listen, how they respond under pressure, how they handle mistakes, and how they treat people when there’s nothing to gain.

Tony’s work reinforces that these qualities are not optional extras, they’re central to leadership effectiveness and importantly, they aren’t fixed traits; they can be developed.

However, that development requires awareness and intention. It also requires a shift in what leaders focus on. Instead of asking, “How do I get better results?” the question becomes, “How do I become the kind of person others can trust, respect, and connect with?”

This conversation with Tony brings leadership back to something simple, but not easy (there’s another recurring theme!). It’s not about having all the answers, it’s not about being the most technically capable person in the room and it’s not about maintaining a constant image of control.

It’s about relationships.

The kind that are built over time, that require presence, honesty, and care. The kind that shape not only how teams perform, but how people experience their work and their lives.

For leaders, the question is not whether relationships matter, because the evidence is clear that they do. The real question is whether we are giving them the attention they deserve. Because in the long run, it’s not just what you achieve that defines your leadership….

It’s who you become and who you bring with you along the way.

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Listen to the full episode on your preferred podcast platform, find the links here: https://smartlink.ausha.co/leading-with-integrity/ep-222-building-meaningful-relationships-the-key-to-sustainable-leadership-impact-longevity-with-anthony-silard

Or, if prefer video then you can watch on YouTube too: https://youtu.be/FSxJaDPSg08

Join me again next week to hear about my conversation with Bill Derrick about navigating the storms of life, and how optimism, faith and resilience can all play their part.

Thanks for reading. I really appreciate your continuing support of Leading with Integrity, it literally wouldn’t be the same with you!

Be a Leader Not a Boss,

- David

In case you don’t know me that well, I’m David Hatch and I’m here to help new managers and first-time founders with their leadership skills, so they can become leaders not bosses, lead with integrity, and build happier, higher performing teams, more effective organisations, and, ultimately: successful teams.

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