Work has changed shape more than a few times in the years I’ve been lucky enough to lead. New tools, new ways of working together, new pressure on agencies and the need to figure it out as we go. Through all of it, one thing has stayed true for me: it’s not just leadership we look to when things get hard, it’s each other.
Beyond the coaching, the guidance, and the work of helping the people on our own team be their best, the leadership most of us think of first, there’s a whole professional world outside that one organization that we can help support, and that can support us. Being a good professional friend doesn’t stop at the edge of the org chart. It extends to the whole network we’ve built, whether we’re actively working with those people right now or not.
Colleagues who scattered to other places
Some of the best people have moved on to different agencies, with different titles, and in some cases to different countries. That doesn’t mean the relationship expired.
- A check-in that isn’t attached to an ask
- A genuine “how’s it going” with no agenda behind it
- Providing feedback on a post, and sharing our helpful perspective
Those go further than people expect. We don’t have to be on the same org chart, or even in the same industry, to still show up for each other.
Partners and collaborators in the day-to-day
Then there are the people we’re actually working alongside right now: vendors, other agencies, contractors, clients who’ve become something closer to peers. It’s easy to treat these relationships as transactional, because there’s a project or a contract holding them together (I try not to).
The strongest partnerships I’ve been part of started as a scope of work and turned into something closer to camaraderie, because both sides brought more than what the contract required. That’s usually what reaching out looks like in practice… an introduction made without being asked, a connection passed along because it might help someone else’s network as much as it helps ours. The relationship outlasts the project, if we let it.
People earlier in their path than we are
There’s also everyone earlier in their career or their industry than we are, the up-and-comers still finding their footing. We don’t have to be someone’s manager to open a door for them.
A piece of advice offered before it’s asked for, a willingness to make time, an honest answer when someone finally works up the nerve to ask a hard question. Small moves, but they compound. What comes out of it isn’t really new, it’s the same camaraderie that’s always mattered, just aimed at people we didn’t used to think to include.
None of this needs to be complicated. Keep it small, keep it simple… reach out, make the connection, help someone else’s network grow the way you’d want yours to. My door is always open, come in anytime and make yourself comfortable.