From leadership expert Jim Citrin's new column at Yahoo! Finance...

"Just about everything we do in both our personal and professional lives is dependent on other people. And how you interact with those people has a direct effect. Even such seemingly "non-relationship" things as learning from a teacher in school or getting a ticket from a police officer are directly affected by your relationship skills.

I just had this conversation with my kids, two of whom are in high school. "Who do you think the teacher will be more supportive of when it comes to assigning grades -- the student who does his work with a positive attitude, who goes in for extra help and pays full and engaged attention in class, or the one who sits back, even if they have the same test scores?""

I love that Jim is already teaching his children the importance of relationships to their academic/professional advancement while they're so young.

Some parents, unfortunately, have the mindset that their children should learn this way of the world on their own, or "the hard way," perhaps because they did.

But I think Jim has the right idea, to teach children the build it before you need it lesson and help them start setting themselves up for success as early as they want, so--as all good parents hope--they have it better than we did.

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