Reciprocity in Relationships: Building a Leverage Account

  

Helping Hands

 

Characters in the Leverage television series use their collective skills as leverage to secure justice for people with nowhere to turn for help.  Although they accept no payment for their services, we can anticipate that if the team ever needs assistance, people whom they have helped will come to their aid.  

Although our acts of kindness are perhaps not as entertaining as Leverage TV, they do make deposits in what Stephen Covey calls an emotional bank account, and what we call our Leverage account.  Whenever we do small favors through courtesy, kindness, honesty, and respect, we are adding to our Leverage account.  It is this Leverage Account that fuels reciprocity and permits us to leverage our relationships in the attainment of a goal.  

As the Easter holiday approaches, many families will celebrate love and mutual respect within the family unit.  Special meals will be prepared, gifts given, religious services attended, and for at least a moment differences will be set aside.  For those with the  good fortune to have strong relationships,  the holiday will  not be a one-day event, but one of many expressions of appreciation.  Each act of kindness will be a deposit into Leverage Accounts, and will most likely result in reciprocal acts in the future.  

Commentary and testimonials following the passing of NBC news bureau chief Tim Russert  in June, 2008 demonstrate the power of reciprocity in relationships.  To a person, those who worked for and with him talked about how they would go above and beyond what was expected because Tim always gave more than he got.  According to the testimonials, he was not one to give lip service support; he was supportive in every way.  Whatever was given to him in terms of employee excellence and follow through – and other support, he returned to them many fold.  

Unfortunately, reciprocity is missing from so many of our business and personal relationships.  It is difficult to exhibit love and caring when it is not reciprocated.  We are but human.  Our own interpersonal relationships are strained when the people with whom we are involved seem to discount the value of all that we do to support them, yet expect to receive our unyielding best efforts. The reciprocity equation becomes unbalanced, and the relationship is at risk. Continued failure to reciprocate over time will deplete a Leverage Account, removing this critical part of the equation from our recipe for success.  

Whether stated as “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine;” “You reap what you sow;” “You get what you give;” or in some other form, the practice of reciprocity in relationships is key to building trust,  as well as a foundation for successful living.  

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