How Do You Network Without Feeling Fake? with Lirone Glikman

A while back, somebody sent me a message on LinkedIn. Hey, I really liked your post. Can you tell me more about your products? So I thanked her, asked which post, and asked what she was interested in. And the real answer came back: actually, I wanted to offer you a program. If you have ever wondered how to network without feeling fake, that message is exactly what you are afraid of becoming. And I have good news. You never have to become it.

Here is the thing. So many brilliant women avoid building relationships at work entirely, because everything they have seen of networking looks like that message. Sneaky. Transactional. A performance. So they put their heads down, do excellent work, and watch the opportunities go to the people who know people.

My guest Lirone Glikman has spent 12 years teaching a completely different way, in 27 countries. She is the founder of The Human Factor, a global consulting and training firm, and the author of the bestselling Super Connector's Playbook. And her whole approach rests on one idea: connection only works when it is real.

The Gap Is About the People

Lirone was a kid with big, global dreams. In the fourth grade she wanted to work for NASA, so she and her mother crafted a letter in English and mailed it off. The answer took four months to arrive by snail mail. And little Lirone sat with a frustration she could not yet name: how do you ever get to the places you dream about when you do not know anyone there?

The gap between me and living the life that I want, achieving the job that I want, getting to places that I want to be at, actually the gap is about the people.

Lirone Glikman

She tested that realization the hard way. At 21, she moved alone to Sydney, Australia, where she knew almost no one. She met someone on the street, told him she wanted to meet people in radio and marketing, and he introduced her to a radio manager in Bondi Beach. What that manager said next, she has never forgotten.

You know something, your English sucks, but I like your vibe and I'm going to give you a show.

The radio manager who gave Lirone her start in Sydney

A month later she was working with Westfield, the biggest corporate in Australia. One honest conversation on a street, and a door opened that no resume could have opened. In her words, that is how she discovered her powers.

The distance between you and your next opportunity is usually a person, not a credential.

How Do You Network Without Feeling Fake?

Start with what authentic actually means, because Lirone does not use the word loosely.

When you're congruent, when you're aligned with your thoughts, your words, your actions, then you feel like you're a whole. You're not fake.

Lirone Glikman

And here is the part that sets so many women free: being strategic is not the opposite of being authentic. Lirone flips the question entirely. Instead of asking who can do something for you, ask who you would genuinely be glad to show up for. Relationship building starts with generosity, not extraction. That is why the sneaky LinkedIn message fails. It is not that the sender wanted something. It is that her thoughts, words, and actions did not match.

The same congruence applies to your personal brand, which Lirone defines as the promise you bring to everyone you communicate with.

A brand essentially is the consistent messages, values that we express in different ways. And that's what people know us for.

Lirone Glikman

She told me about a man in one of her workshops who named his two greatest strengths: a good sense of humor and assertiveness. She could see the humor immediately. Then she asked him whether people actually see the assertiveness. His answer? No. The strength was real. The signal was missing. So they mapped the words and actions that would let people finally see what was already inside him.

Hear me on this, because that is the personal brand version of what I teach every day. Your strengths do not announce themselves. They have to be expressed, consistently, in ways other people can recognize.

The Six Pillars of a Super Connector

Lirone built her method by researching and interviewing leaders in the world of business networking, including Dr. Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI. Authenticity is the foundation underneath all of it. Then come six pillars, and she is quick to say real life is never perfectly linear.

Modesty Is Not Practical

In her workshops, Lirone raises a line from businesswoman Hana Rado and lets the room argue about it: modesty is not practical. Some people push back. I was raised to believe modesty is a beautiful thing. And then the other side of the room answers.

If I won't say what I think, or if I won't say that I did it, then someone else will get the credit or get their raise.

Lirone Glikman, on the modesty debate in her workshops

Her resolution is not to become the loudest person in the building. It is a dial. Know when to turn it down, and know when staying quiet is quietly costing you.

You need to know how to be flexible and when to raise your voice in a professional manner and stand for yourself and own what you need.

Lirone Glikman

And when you do raise your voice, Lirone gives you the sturdiest ground to stand on. Base what you say on facts, actions, and data. Disagreeing with your manager in a meeting stops feeling like a personality clash when you can point to what your team did last month and what the numbers showed. As she puts it, data doesn't lie.

This is exactly where her world and mine meet. Results do not speak. They are interpreted. The Articulation Gap is the distance between the impact you create and the impact leadership recognizes and rewards, and staying modest about work you actually did is one of the fastest ways to widen it.

Modesty is a dial, not a virtue. Know when staying quiet is costing you the credit.

Build the Relationship Before You Need It

Now for the most practical story of the whole conversation. Lirone coached a woman who ran audits at her company. Every month she had to collect data from other departments, and every month they were late, annoyed, and annoying. The exchange between them had become purely transactional: I need something from you, and you will not give it to me.

Lirone's advice was almost comically simple. Sit with them at lunch. Bring a cake. Share a kind word. Put relationship time on your calendar without them ever knowing it is there. Create experiences between you that have nothing to do with the monthly ask.

It's about building another type of relationship, not only transactional, but also emotional.

Lirone Glikman

It worked. The departments became friendlier, and the work started to flow. And the payoff goes far beyond smoother audits. Lirone points to research from the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University that followed employees at law, consulting, and accounting firms for about 20 years. People who built both kinds of workplace relationships, the working kind and the emotional kind with people they could open up with, were linked to about four more years of life expectancy. Read that again. The relationships you build at work are not office politics. They are wellbeing.

And if you are reading all of this thinking, that is lovely for the extroverts, Lirone has a gift for you.

Introverted people actually have one of the most amazing connecting skills ever. They know how to listen.

Lirone Glikman

Quiet observers read the room. They ask questions, and the person asking questions is the one guiding the conversation. As Lirone reminded me, echoing Dale Carnegie, when you are truly interested in someone, they become interested, and you become more interesting. You do not have to perform to connect. You have to pay attention.

What I Want You to Take From This

Near the end of our conversation, Lirone said the sentence that holds this whole episode together, and it is one I want you to carry into your week.

Nobody teaches us how to build relationships, even though we communicate with people every day. It just doesn't make sense.

Lirone Glikman

Knowing how to connect and communicate with people, she says, is almost as important as knowing your job. So if networking has always felt awkward or fake to you, that is not a character flaw. That is a missing class. And you just took the first session.

One more thing, because it is the part I care about most. Real relationships carry your work into rooms you are not in. But the people carrying it need language for what you actually did. That is the Articulation Gap, the distance between the impact you create and the impact leadership recognizes and rewards. Build the relationship, and give it something clear to carry.

So here is your move this week. Pick one person at work. Not to ask for anything. Coffee, lunch, a real conversation. Build it before you need it.

About Lirone Glikman

Lirone Glikman is a globally recognized expert, keynote speaker, and bestselling author specializing in business relationships, personal branding, and global business development. She is the founder of The Human Factor, a global consulting and training firm.

Her book, The Super Connector's Playbook, is an Amazon bestseller built on more than a decade of research, including interviews with leaders in the world of business networking such as Dr. Ivan Misner, founder of BNI. Over the past 12 years she has taught her approach in 27 countries, working with corporations, universities, and startup founders around the world.

Connect with Lirone on LinkedIn