Business relationship management (BRM) is one of the most powerful—and most underdeveloped—leadership competencies in organizations. This article will help you identify essential BRM capabilities and learn how to address strategic gaps.
The #1 Leadership Skill Most Organizations Overlook—And Why It’s Costing Them
Most Leaders Manage Relationships. Few Lead Through Them.
Ask any senior leader whether relationships matter in their role, and the answer is always the same: ”Yes.” Ask whether their organization has a structured approach to developing business relationship management (BRM) as a leadership capability, and the conversation gets much quieter.
BRM is not a department; it is not a job title. Business relationship management is a core leadership competency: the ability to build trusted partnerships, align stakeholders around strategic outcomes, and translate organizational priorities into tangible, co-created value. It is the connective tissue that makes leadership actually work.
And yet, for most organizations, it is developed informally, if at all. Leaders are expected to be skilled relationship managers but are rarely given a framework to understand what that means, assess their own capabilities, or intentionally build those skills.
That gap is not just a development issue; it is a strategic liability.
When BRM Capability Is Invisible, the Consequences are Very Visible
Organizations that lack a clear picture of their BRM leadership capability don’t experience one defining failure. They experience a pattern of friction that is difficult to trace back to a single source:
- Strategic initiatives that lose momentum.
- Cross-functional alignment that never quite holds.
- Leaders who are technically excellent but struggle to create genuine influence.
- A persistent sense that the organization is working harder than it should to achieve outcomes that should feel more natural.
These are not random challenges. They are predictable symptoms of an underdeveloped business relationship management capability at the leadership level. The frustration deepens because the root cause remains unnamed, and teams focus on the presenting problem without ever addressing what’s underneath it.
You cannot develop a capability you haven’t defined, and you cannot close a gap you haven’t measured.
Stronger BRM Leadership Starts with an Honest Assessment
Developing business relationship management as a leadership capability requires the same rigour you would apply to any strategic investment: a clear baseline, a defined future state, and a structured roadmap to close the distance between the two.
That starts with an assessment, a structured, evidence-based evaluation of where your leaders and your organization currently stand across the core BRM competencies. What does your leadership population do well? Where are the critical gaps? Which capabilities, if developed, would have the greatest impact on your strategic priorities?
With that picture in place, development becomes intentional. Rather than generic leadership training that addresses everything and changes little, you can build a targeted plan that focuses on the specific BRM skills and behaviours that will move your leaders—and your organization—forward.
This is the work at the heart of our BRM assessment workshops and leadership coaching. We work with organizations to establish a credible capability baseline, identify the highest-leverage development opportunities, and co-design a practical roadmap with measurable milestones. For individual leaders, our one-to-one BRM coaching translates assessment insights into a personal growth plan, building the relationship leadership competencies that create lasting impact.
Business relationship management is not a soft skill. It is a strategic capability, one that determines whether your leaders can unlock the full potential of the relationships, resources, and opportunities available to them. Organizations that treat BRM as a leadership discipline, assess it rigorously, and develop it consistently are the ones that lead with less friction and greater impact.
The question is not whether business relationship management matters to your leadership effectiveness. The question is: are your BRM capabilities fully developed to their potential?
Take the next step in your BRM leadership journey:
→ Building a BRM Leadership Capability Improvement Approach
→ Book a meeting with Peter Lijnse to discuss options
Lead and Succeed
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.