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Essay / Importance of Interpersonal Relationships in the Workplace
Davis (1998) conducted a survey of California school superintendents, which found that the primary reason most superintendents and principals were fired was because that they had not learned good interpersonal communication skills or that they had failed to use their skills in the field with their subordinates. Bulach, Boothe, and Pickett (1998) studied 375 teachers and determined fourteen specific groups of principal errors or destructive behaviors. The researchers found that it was principals' mistakes in interpersonal relationships and communication that were most often mentioned by teachers in the study. These subsets of leadership errors that were commonly reported by teachers were lack of trust and uncaring and uncaring attitudes, with the most mentioned being a lack of listening skills on the part of educational leaders. Additionally, in their literature review, Bulach et al. (1998) found that in the school programs of the three US states they studied, nothing substantial was found regarding the training of educational leaders in relationship building. The authors' clear implication in their statement was that if the opposite were true, it would have a significant positive effect on the overall functioning of schools, from top to bottom in the educational chain.