Leadership development programs emphasize critical skills such as communication, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence. However, leaders often overlook one essential capability: business relationship management (BRM). While leaders train to engage in effective communication or manage teams, they rarely receive direct guidance on how to build and manage relationships as a strategic capability intentionally.
This lack of recognition leads to a significant gap in leadership effectiveness. When leaders don’t see BRM as a leadership skill, they may struggle to foster cross-functional collaboration, align teams with business objectives, or drive value across the organization. The result? Silos persist, misalignment slows progress, and the organization misses opportunities for innovation and efficiency.
The Hidden Role of BRM in Leadership
The irony is that many top leadership skills do touch on aspects of BRM—just not explicitly. Consider these common leadership competencies:
- Communication: Leaders are expected to communicate vision, expectations, and strategy. But communication alone doesn’t ensure strong relationships. BRM provides a structured approach to maintaining trust, resolving conflicts, and sustaining collaboration.
- Managing Partnerships: Leaders work with peers and partners across the organization, but without understanding BRM, these interactions can become transactional rather than value-driven.
- Problem-Solving: Leaders address challenges in their organizations, but impact comes when they solve problems with their partners, not just for them. BRM emphasizes shared ownership of challenges and solutions.
- Collaboration: Many leadership programs discuss the importance of teamwork, but they rarely teach the mechanics of fostering sustained collaboration across departments, functions, and external partners.
These are all elements of BRM, yet without BRM as an intentional leadership capability, organizations struggle to turn these skills into a culture of relationship-driven success.
The Consequences of Overlooking BRM
When organizations fail to recognize BRM as a leadership skill, leaders often:
- Lack clarity on how to build and maintain business relationships effectively.
- Struggle with alignment between teams, leading to conflicting priorities and inefficiencies.
- Miss out on value creation because they focus on execution rather than strategic relationship-building.
Ultimately, organizations that do not integrate BRM into leadership development risk falling into a cycle of misalignment, reactive decision-making, and transactional interactions rather than building sustainable partnerships that drive long-term success.
The Solution: Elevating BRM as a Leadership Skill
Organizations must treat business relationship management as a core leadership skill to bridge this gap. This means:
- Recognizing BRM as a leadership discipline, not just a function within IT or a single department.
- Embedding BRM principles into leadership training so leaders at all levels understand how to build and sustain productive relationships.
- Creating a culture where collaboration leads to results, rather than seeing relationship-building as a ‘soft skill’ with no clear impact.
When BRM is prioritized, leaders become value creators rather than just decision-makers. They foster an environment where collaboration drives results, and teams work together toward shared goals.
Join Our New Course: Leading with Relationships
To help organizations and leaders integrate BRM into their leadership approach, we’re excited to introduce our new one-day course: Leading with Relationships.
This course teaches leaders how to foster collaboration, aligns with peers and partners, and drives measurable results through strong business relationships—the foundational elements of BRM as a leadership skill.
If you want to equip your leaders with the skills to turn relationships into a strategic advantage, this course is for you. Contact us today to learn more and reserve your spot!
Leadership Education, BRM Training, Courses, Coaching and Consulting
Lead the Pack Consulting specializes in business relationship management (BRM) leadership development. Our years of experience in Leadership Management Education, Training, Courses, Coaching and Consulting help us support business relationship management teams and provide them with the leadership skills needed to overcome their challenges. We have provided leadership coaching to business relationship managers, leaders, and teams in a variety of organizations and industries. Since 2013, we have been a registered provider of business relationship management certification workshops and coaching.
Our coaches, Elka Schrijver and Peter Lijnse, have both won the prestigious Arnie Award from the Business Relationship Management (BRM) Institute for their work to embody, enhance, and promote business relationship management knowledge throughout the global BRM community. They have been actively involved in the BRM Institute since it was founded in 2013 and have been contributing authors for several components of the BRM Body of Knowledge and certification courses. They are currently writing a series of practical, user-friendly books about mastering business relationship management leadership skills.
Lead and Succeed!
Peter Lijnse & Elka Schrijver
Lead The Pack Consulting
2025 Leadership BRM Courses