We are expected to delight customers, create harmony in multi-cultural teams, survive through continuous change and play many different roles in the many corners of our matrix organisations.

We have begun to understand that success is not only about how smart we are, but often more about how well we handle ourselves and build relationships with others. It requires a set of skills, now called emotional intelligence, which enables us to relate to others with consideration and respectfulness. We need the same skills to encourage innovation by drawing ideas from others and to engage with people in resolving a complex problem to which no one person has all the answers. It's all about relationships.

Strange then, that so many powerful and successful leaders do not seem to bother much with building relationships. Many of them are not at all likeable and some are well known for their temper tantrums, obscene language and generally toxic behaviour.

But people like to associate with those who have power, basking in the reflected glory and sharing in the rewards that are generated. The trade-off is that they forgive, overlook, or rationalise the flaws of powerful and successful leaders as eccentric or even endearing behaviour, and focus on their great achievements.

You can apply emotional intelligence skills to develop solid, respectful, long term relationships, and at the same time you may become powerful and successful. The perhaps sad reality is that you can also become successful purely by the pursuit of power - and people will forgive you the toxic behaviours that got you there.

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