This post originally appeared on Forbes.
“When other people want you to be successful, the likelihood of that happening is much greater,” said Lisa Lutoff-Perlow, co-author, with Sarah McArthur, of Making Waves: A Woman’s Rise to the Top Using Smarts, Heart, and Courage. In a recent conversation, she described becoming the president and CEO of Celebrity Cruises and vice chairman of external affairs for Royal Caribbean Group—and how she accelerated her career by instinctively building relationships with her team, colleagues and bosses. “People underestimate the value and the return you get for that investment,” she said.
Relationships Accelerate Career Growth
Early on, Lutoff-Perlo saw how building relationships moved her career forward, even when she wasn’t fully prepared for promotions. “I decided that I was going to identify the gaps I had, and I was going to create a team around me that fills in those gaps,” she explained. “I wanted to do everything I could for them, because I knew in turn they would do everything they could for me—and for Celebrity and for our guests and for each other. Creating that type of culture and environment in the industry that I was in paid dividends.”
Lutoff-Perlo doggedly turned setbacks into opportunities. “I’m quite persistent and determined—I will pick myself up and dust myself off even if I’m pretty beaten down on some days,” she said. “Let’s face it: You have to be pretty driven, you have to be ambitious, you have to be direct and tell people what you want.” But first, she added, you must figure out how to do those things “in a way where you actually have people rooting for you versus rooting against you.”
Build Presence and Share Successes
Understanding that she could never achieve success alone, Lutoff-Perlo developed remote relationships even before they were called that. She recognized that it takes energy and consistent communication to empower teams, and created a collaborative environment where success could be shared once common goals were met.
“We had 20,000 crew members spread out all over the world, the vast majority of which never met me,” she remembered, “but every single one knew who I was, knew what I stood for, knew that I cared about them.” She remained mindful of the fact that “there are so many ways to communicate, so many ways to be visible, so many ways to do things that prove who you are every single day. I would regularly show up at meetings. I would regularly show up on video. I would regularly send notes and letters to our crew. I would regularly sail on vacation on our ships so that I would be able to engage and interact with our crew.”
As Lutoff-Perlo discovered, leaders can be visible even when they’re not physically present, and there are many ways to strengthen a company’s culture even when the leaders and employees never meet face-to-face. She ensured that communications from the top were reinforced by middle management and took every opportunity to thank employees for their work. “Whenever I walked a ship, I would stop and talk to every crew member and thank them,” she recalled. “I was fortunate, because so many others that were front-facing with them every single day would quote me and talk about me.
Accountability Is A Two-Way Street
This desire to connect also influenced Lutoff-Perlo’s approach to employee accountability. She believed a two-way relationship that both challenged and supported employees would inspire them to respond with strong loyalty and high performance. “They had to hit their revenue targets,” she explained. “They had to make sure the ships were safe. They knew what their metrics were, and they knew that there was a high level of accountability with me. But with that high level of accountability, you got a leader who was genuinely invested in your well-being, in your care. I wanted to make sure that people understood it wasn’t all one way.”
Lutoff-Perlo also empowered her team rather than micromanaging, and having done almost every job in the organization, mined her experiences to offer insight instead of interfering. “I didn’t want to be in the way; I wanted to be a voice of reason,” she explained. “I wanted to throw out ideas or a different point of view so we could debate it and make sure we were making the right decision. But I always made sure people knew that I didn’t want to do their jobs. I only wanted to help them do their jobs.”
Take Chances To Gain Visibility
During executive committee meetings, Lutiff-Perlo noticed that whenever executive committee members didn’t know a candidate personally, they hesitated to support them for promotion, and she recognized the parallel to her own career trajectory. She realized she needed tightly connected and mutually supportive allies at every level, including above her, to reach her goals, so she sought out mentors to support her career journey and projects that would raise her visibility. “You need to volunteer for things that get you outside of that one-level-up chain of command,” she explained; otherwise, “the right people couldn’t see what I was doing.”
Lutoff-Perlo emphasizes that she could never have gotten to the top without the support of countless mutually valuable relationships at every level of the organization. “I didn’t do it alone,” she said. “I always say, ‘It takes a village,’ and my career is full of a village of people who I owe everything to. None of us get to where we’re going to go without the help of a lot of great people along the way.”
As Lutoff-Perlo’s career journey illustrates, no matter how driven or skilled you are, you still need to foster and nurture deep connections to meet your targets and open the doors that lead to the greatest accomplishments. Success is rarely achieved in isolation—it’s support, mentorship and collaboration with others that propel you forward. Creating and maintaining strong relationships isn’t just a strategy, it’s the foundation on which you can build significant achievement.
Onward and upward—
LK