Employees – To Befriend, or Not to Befriend?

When you spend 40+++ hours a week in close proximity to your employees, becoming friends at work may seem like an excellent idea. Why not add the benefits and cheer of friendship and comradery to your work day? If you’ve wondered, “Should managers be friends with employees?” here is why the answer is no.

If you look up “friend” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it is defined as: “one attached to another through affection or esteem; a favored companion.”  Seasoned human resource professionals caution managers and supervisors to avoid building personal friendships with team members that report directly to them, and for good reason. By definition, friendships with employees are problematic for two reasons:

• Business decisions often require that you not be attached through affection or esteem when you are dealing with personnel-related issues.
• Favoring one employee over another is always a problem when it comes to unbiased, effective leadership.

I strongly believe that building friendships with your direct reports is a mistake. Don’t get me wrong – there are exceptions, and there are certain aspects of friendship that are indeed beneficial to leadership. I’ll get to that, but bear with me for a minute. No matter how close you are to an employee, don’t ever mistake it for true friendship. The inherent role of a manager creates situations that will transcend the boundaries of any close friendship. For example:

• A true friend would probably never make a decision that puts you in financial straits, like firing you from your job.
• A true friend would likely promote you over others…even if you may not be the most qualified person for the job.
• If you were experiencing personal challenges outside of work, a true friend would be understanding and hold you less accountable during these difficult times.

Some leaders naively believe that if they are friends with their direct reports and their direct reports like them, the job of leading them will be a lot easier. Our considerable experience in these matters has shown us that true friendship makes this job harder, not easier.

Some common challenges encountered when leaders become personal friends with their direct reports include:

Understanding

If employees are your friends at work, they will expect more understanding about their personal, unique situations. If I am your true friend and I am going through a divorce, I expect you to hold me less accountable for accomplishing my goals next quarter.

Favoritism

If you are friends with some members of your team outside of work, (for example, partaking in activities during the weekends with them) the other team members who are not included will be looking at every decision you make through a lens of unfairness.

Decision Making

When you are close friends with your direct reports, making tough, objective people decisions gets even harder.

Support

When you believe you have a true friendship with your direct reports, you expect unconditional support. However, real world experience shows us that when employees don’t like your business decision, they will find it difficult to support you. Not only will you be disappointed, but you will find yourself in a difficult position explaining to your boss why your team goals are not being accomplished.

Accountability

When an employee is your friend, it is a lot more difficult to maintain accountability, especially when it involves another employee with whom you may not have the same level of friendship.

Giving Feedback

It is hard to give difficult feedback at the best of times, but even more so when you have to give it to your friends. Some amiable, highly supportive managers would rather quit themselves than give difficult feedback to a true friend.

Socializing

Can you still go out for a Happy Hour drink with your employees? Absolutely, but with a couple of conditions:

• Invite everyone on your team…not just your friends. If you don’t invite everyone, team members who did not attend will assume that you talked about them.
• Second, buy everyone a drink, share that one drink with the team, and then leave.

There could be books written about managers and supervisors who stayed at Happy Hour for one drink too many. Socialization, when it crosses the line, changes the perception of the leader forever.

Now for the twist. In certain circumstances, true friendships with direct reports would be very helpful. For instance, consider this:

Your boss tells you that you need to change the work schedule of your team. Your team has been working a 4/10 weekly schedule with Fridays or Mondays off. Your boss tells you that she feels it is in the best interest of the organization to move back to the five days a week schedule. In fact, your boss tells you that you don’t have a choice, you need to make this happen.

If your direct reports are “true friends,” they understand the difficult position you are in, and the goals you are responsible for achieving. True friends would take you to Happy Hour and tell you, ”Peter, I know none of us are excited about this change, but you need to know that all of us are 100 percent behind you and committed to making the new schedule a reality. Do you want us to start tomorrow or wait until next week?”  That’s what great friends would do. They would never put their leader friend in a difficult situation by not supporting an initiative the leader is responsible for implementing.

My experience has been that in reality, however, most friends in the example above threaten to quit because they’re not willing to change their schedule and lifestyle, no matter how great a friend they consider their leader to be.

Be Friendly, rather than Friends

As strongly as I oppose friendships with direct reports, understand this:  leadership is based on effective workplace relationships.  I am by no means suggesting you distance yourself from team members, or show a disinterest in their lives. I recommend you be really friendly, and really caring – both important pillars of genuine friendships and leadership alike. Those two competencies will serve leaders really well in most situations.

We continue to be challenged on our “be friendly, but don’t be personal friends” advice.  In truth, someone occasionally tells us a heartfelt story about marrying a “true friend” who once reported to them, and then living happily ever after. For every happily ever after, though, we’ve heard many more stories about the demise of a leader who had their leadership compromised because of their personal friendship with a direct report.

Hopefully I’ve convinced you to steer clear of close friendships with your employees. However, if you still believe you can be true friends at work with your direct reports, we agree with you and support your decision. It creates great management consulting projects for Peter Barron Stark Companies.