You be the queen today.

Building the Muscles of Relational Intelligence

My seven-year-old knows exactly how to treat her little sister.

She also knows how to take the toy straight out of her hands. Without asking.

She puts a sign on the door that says do not enter. Or she says something horrifically unkind and then apologizes, knowing she would not have needed to apologize if she had just made a different choice in the first place.

I watch her, and I think: she already knows better. She has known better for years.

And then I think: so do many of us.

This is not a parenting essay. This is a leadership essay. Because what I see in my daughter, I see in meeting rooms, video calls, and Slack threads daily.

We know how to articulate empathy. We nod in the workshop. We believe in people. We can describe psychological safety with precision and nuance.

And then, without thinking, we walk into a room and take the toy straight out of someone’s hands.

But, knowing is not the same as doing.

I have been sitting with that gap for a long time. In all my years in leadership positions, this is the gap I return to more than any other. It’s where culture breaks down. It’s where trust erodes quietly, before anyone names it. It’s also where the most important leadership work takes place.

But here is what keeps me hopeful….Sometimes my daughter gets it completely right.

When she knows her little sister really wants a specific toy, she lets her have it. When her sister wants to be Glinda and not Elphaba, she rarley negotiates. When they are playing and her sister wants to be the queen and not the princess, she says yes. No audience. No recognition. No negotiation.

She just says: You be the queen today.

Five words.

I think about those five words more than I probably should. Because what she is doing in that moment is not being selfless. It is not performing generosity. It is reading the room and responding to what is actually in front of her. She is choosing the relationship over the role.

That is relational intelligence.

Not a personality type. Not something you are born with or without. A muscle. And like any muscle, it only grows when you use it. Specifically, when you use it in the moment it is required, with real people, in real time, when it costs you something.

The workshops are not enough. The awareness is not enough. The nodding is not enough.

The muscle builds in the moment you almost take the toy, think for a quick moment, and you put it down instead.

It builds when you are tired and reactive and someone needs you to read the room, and you do it anyway.

It builds when you say: You be the queen today. And you mean it.

I wrote about this in my book, “Be Yourself at Work”, because I believe closing this gap is the most important work any of us can do right now. Not just at work. Everywhere.

If this landed for you, the book is a place to go deeper. It is available wherever books are sold.

With Love,

❤️ Claude