Leadership Rapport Is Different
Good leaders make a habit of building Rapport. But they have fewer chances to use the listening and reflective style I recommended in the previous chapter. In fact, that style can be a mistake when people are looking for strong leadership.
I have known sports coaches and business leaders lose their people’s respect when results are poor, and they are too tolerant of mistakes and a lack of effort. Staff and teammates depend on those results and are looking for improvement via accountability.
After a bad result, dishing out a rollicking might be just the ticket. But there are good and bad ways of doing this.
In my experience, if a leader is corrective or critical more than 20% of the time, something else is badly wrong. Leadership Rapport should be positive and engaging the other 80%. I’m going to use two anecdotes to highlight successful approaches:
- The Power of Recognition and Respect:
- Rapport to unite a frightened team and defeat overwhelming odds.
Rapport and the Power of Respect
This is a short story about my friend and colleague, Sam. He and I joined the police at about the same time. Sam was intelligent, fun and had a great sense of humour. He was hard-working, courageous and honest. But he was an average police officer.
He once took over a highly motivated street crime team. They put all their energies, experience and commitment into tackling robbery and car crime.
Whereas his predecessor swept away paperwork and turned them into the most successful thief-takers in the division, Sam placed a high value on admin and reports, turning them into pen pushers.
In the lower ranks, Sam was liked but not respected.
What Sam had was something that doesn’t appear on many competency frameworks. Kaufman’s list of what great leaders actually are includes qualities such as trustworthy, principled, courageous, loyal, kind, understanding, forgiving and unselfish. It says nothing about being especially clever or technically gifted.
Almost everything on it is about how you treat people. Sam had most of it by instinct. And he had one quality that set him apart above all others. He made everyone he met feel valued.
Sam was popular, reliable, and his teams never produced any controversy. His career progressed well. And once he’d reached middle management positions, his progress accelerated.
At this point, typically, leaders are more remote, particularly in a uniformed organisation like the police. But Sam was never distant. He put himself about and made sure his officers met him regularly.
Sam always knew something about his people, names, the cases they were working on, family, interests, etc.
I saw it many times. He’d stop in a corridor or catch someone at the end of a briefing, lean in slightly, and ask about a case they’d mentioned to him weeks earlier. He remembered the details. He’d use their name.
Two minutes later, the officer walked away standing a little taller. It cost Sam nothing, and it was absolutely genuine. Relaxed and with a ready smile, he could talk to them as individuals, directly linking to the Identity Model and their needs for Belonging and Esteem.
As we know, everyone has this ancient need to be noticed and heard. And that need is fulfilled even more so when a leader meets it.
Listening vs Telling
Notably, in these conversations, Sam did more listening than ‘telling’. He made everyone he met feel like an essential member of his team. He was genuine; his authenticity shone through.
He always Managed his State. He could deal with any situation with the same composure. He never shirked a hard decision for fear of being unpopular.
But when tackling mistakes and underperformance, he showed that he still valued and respected the people concerned.
The officers Sam led understood his motivations and respected his honesty and consistency. His people grew to love him and would jump through hoops for him.
An average police Officer had turned into an extraordinary leader. And his people were doing outstanding work. He was eventually selected for the highest positions in the service.
Uniting a Frightened Team and Defeating Overwhelming Odds
On a cold, dark winter evening, I was working, tackling crowd trouble after a football match (soccer). I heard a call for backup come over the radio.
It was from a team of my officers working in a different part of town.
I jumped into a police van, empty but for the driver, and told him to get me to the scene pronto.
As we arrived, we turned a corner, and our headlamps picked out a line of seven police officers. They were in a ragged cordon, taking small steps backwards.
Facing them were about 250 football hooligans. Reflected in our lights, the thugs’ faces were gleeful and taunting as they saw the police line facing them, nervously backing off.
The thugs were from the away team…
They had outnumbered the local hooligans who’d run off and hidden in a pub.
The ‘away’ thugs wanted to get into the pub, smash it up and anyone who was hiding in there.
The officers were vastly outnumbered and lacking the confidence needed to stand firm. I knew if I didn’t get a grip, my officers were seconds away from being overwhelmed.
Sometimes Rapport means Taking Charge
I had been in situations like this before, and I knew how a small group can stand against a much larger one.
The smaller unit must be unified, thinking and acting as one, working towards a common purpose. That unity creates strength.
The larger group’s mentality must be broken down. Two hundred and fifty minds acting as one would be unstoppable. Two hundred and fifty individuals can each feel isolated, vulnerable and uncertain.
So my Outcomes were simple:
- To unify my team.
- To fracture the thugs’ group Identity.
- To disperse the thugs.
The third mattered. If we caught any of them, they would have had no choice but to fight, and their numbers would have overwhelmed us.
Their momentum was building. I stepped out of the van, ran to the front of my officers, and placed myself between them and the mob.
“We’re the f***ing Police, we don’t go backwards! Follow me!”
I turned and started walking towards the mob
You might be wondering how that was Rapportful.
At that moment, their physical safety mattered, but their Identity mattered more. If they buckled and ran, they would survive the night but lose Belonging and Esteem in the eyes of each other, their colleagues and the community they served. They knew that instinctively.
They had an immediate need to feel safe.
Listening, empathy, or reassurance would have missed the point. What they needed was firm leadership that secured their Identity as courageous people who protect their community.
By stepping forward with certainty, I gave them that Identity: a team that does not go backwards under pressure. I appeared confident, and that confidence was contagious. I aligned their thinking to a shared Outcome and shifted their instincts from Away From danger to Towards purposeful action.
That is why it was Rapportful. And that is why they followed me.
Charge!
Adrenaline coursed through me. I took slow 7‑11 breaths to stay in control of my Identity, my State and my System 2 brain. Instead of fighting the rush, I let it sharpen me.
When I shouted:
“We’re the f***ing police , we don’t go backwards! Follow me!”
The certainty in my voice mattered; if I had sounded unsure, my officers might have hesitated.
We carried expandable steel batons that snapped from six inches (15 cm) to a foot and a half (50 cm) with a flick of the wrist. The metallic crack they made when opening was attention grabbing!
Facing the thugs, I signalled for my officers to collapse the batons and began to walk towards the mob, beckoning my team forward.
A roar rose from the hooligans.
They stood there, shouting gleefully, hands beckoning, howls of ‘come on’, as if welcoming a battle.
There was so much noise I wondered if my officers would follow me. But I couldn’t turn around to check. That would have been a sign of weakness.
Facing the hooligans and with my back to my colleagues, I raised my hand, and we racked open our batons as one to present a unified, determined force. The simultaneous crack of steel reverberated in the alley, and as we advanced in step, the hooligans’ bravado faltered.
For the first time, I saw a flicker of doubt in the faces of the mob. At that moment, just for a second, they felt vulnerable as they began to think as individuals.
I had to act before they regrouped.
At their front was an enormous, thick-set bloke. He was obviously the leader. I pointed at him, explained in fluent Anglo-Saxon that I was going to wrap my baton around his neck, and I ran at him.
Over the years, I had perfected a method for running for moments like these. It involves energetic pumping of the knees and arms that looks rapid but generates very little speed.
The last thing I wanted to do was outpace my colleagues or catch up with the mob. And anyway, I had no idea if my officers were following me. I knew I’d be able to tell by the looks on the hooligans’ faces.
You can imagine how happy they’d look if I were running at them on my own.
It took only a second to get my feedback. I could see the doubt in the hooligan’s eyes harden into disbelief, then fear. The mob’s group identity shattered.
They fell totally silent, and for the first time, I heard my team behind me roaring. I can’t tell you how good that felt! Everyone could hear them, too; the mob splintered, turned and ran.
As their footsteps receded and the alley fell quiet, I turned to face my officers. I saw that my team were elated. In a moment, they’d gone from fear of failure and humiliation to savouring an against‑the‑odds success.
Adrenaline still pulsed through me, but I met each of their eyes and saw relief turning into pride. This was my moment to use the Elevate Formula from Skill 5 of the 7 Skills to impress™: I reinforced their Identity and Lasting qualities by telling them:
“That’s who you are. That’s what we do. We don’t go backwards. We show courage, we work together, and we protect our communities.”
I allowed myself a private sigh of relief
I racked my baton and placed it back in its holster. I tucked my hands in behind my stab vest, so my officers didn’t see them trembling.
I was practised at masking my fear in these situations; I knew full well that I’d been one quiver of the voice or one glance backwards away from running alone into the mob.
Yet the power of Identity, Outcomes, Managing my State and building Rapport once again burst through my personal limitations.
Summary: Balancing Rapport and Command
Good leaders build Rapport with their teams. And yet, there are times when a direct and assertive style is essential.
If leaders gloss over mistakes or accept poor effort, they risk losing respect. The two police stories in this chapter illustrate the balance:
- Sam’s story highlighted the warmth of connection and respect in good times.
- The hooligan encounter showed how a command style, used at the right moment, can unify a team and protect its Identity.
In adversity, leaders must manage their own state and provide clear, confident direction. Leading with certainty inspires confidence and unity.
A unified team, bound by shared Identity, can be more powerful than a larger group of individuals. Building Rapport and demonstrating strong leadership should be balanced according to the situation and the team’s needs.
Next: Skill 4: Reveal Persuasion Pathways
You’ve seen what Rapport looks like under pressure.
In Sam’s story, Rapport built Belonging and Esteem over time.
In the alleyway, Rapport was expressed through certainty, direction, and decisive action that protected Identity in the moment.
But beneath both situations was something else at work.
In the next chapter, we go underneath Rapport to reveal the subconscious routes that shape behaviour before people even realise they’ve chosen to act.
Skill 4: Reveal Persuasion Pathways shows how Outcomes, language, and Identity cues quietly steer decisions, whether you are leading a team, coaching performance, or influencing change.
That’s where we go next.