Walking the fine line of Manager / Team Relationships

I love people. Well…. I love some people (some days).

But seriously, I do love making new friends. I am very good at making new friends, as my husband says I “collect people”. I love the water cooler chats at work, the “debrief” of work drinks the next day and hearing about peoples lives outside of work. I even met my husband at work! I am, what most would define as a classic “people person” (cringe).

Because of my love for people, I thought choosing HR and Management as a profession meant I would never be lonely. How great!? A career which would feed my desire to be helpful, liked and friendly with everyone!

It was an incredibly hard pill to swallow when (as an HR graduate) I realised that despite having landed my “dream” job I will forever be the person no one wants to be friends with! HR is lonely. No one wants to be friends with HR. No one wants to hang with HR at the Christmas party (until they need me to organise their Uber home) and even the funniest of workplace jokes can seem “inappropriate” if I am in the audience.

Prior to consulting, I spent many years working in HR in-house for AMAZING brands (Conde Nast, Bacardi etc), surrounded by impressive, innovative and empowering people who I really, REALLY wanted to be friends with.

What my career choice has shown is me is that, even amongst a team of a thousand, I can still be lonely. But I’ve learnt to be okay with the unpopularity of my profession. I’ve even developed a greater life perspective on relationships because of it. My theory is simple – every relationship has its place…..and for me, that place is never with non-HR colleagues at work. I have learnt the hard way that the precarious balance of friendships vs work colleagues is just not for me.

So the big question is… can a manager and their subordinates be friends? I think we need to decide how we define being “friends”. It is so nice to be friendly with your subordinates – to have an easy, open and warm relationship based on mutual professional respect, rapport and care. However, we are talking about taking it further – socialising outside of work together, introducing colleagues to your family, sharing intimate details of your personal or professional life. In my experience it can be a very difficult balance. If the relationship falters, there can be a huge emotional and professional price to pay.

Being a manager is hard. Even more so as we manage people (not robots). It is such a thin line we walk as a Manager, balancing the relationships of multiple team members, understanding each of their innate styles, how they like to be managed, how to build rapport with them, how much of themselves they want to share with us, how open they are to feedback (or not)

It’s a hard lesson to learn that when you are a manager you can never be a true “friend” to anyone in your team. You have to maintain boundaries so that any friendship does not impact any difficult decisions you need to make as a Manager. Friendships (well healthy ones) shouldn’t have the power imbalance that exist under an employee and Manager relationship.

Don’t get me wrong, as managers (and humans) we want our team to like and respect us. We want to feel as a Manager, we stand with them. We want our team to trust us and we want to trust them. You can already see how hard this is getting…….the line between Boss and BFF can be hard to detect (and so much harder to walk away from once crossed).

It is inevitable we will develop work relationships – we spend often eight hours a day together, five days a week – around 90,000 hours over the course of a lifetime with co-workers. Much more than we spend with our partners or children! We share lunches, projects, work trips away and stories about your dog (if that’s not enough to bond people together, I’m not sure what is….or maybe that’s just me?).

So what are the rules? How can we traverse the waters of manager / colleague / subordinate relationships and come out unscathed? How can we still able to do our job to the best of our ability and full that innate human need to be liked at the same time? Keep reading for my four top tips on a strategy to bond with your team but also maintain a health distance.

1. START AS YOU MEAN TO CONTINUE:

You have been hired into a new role and have a team beneath you. You need to consider the responsibility you have towards your team. You are responsible for their careers, their progression, their development and (for many hours of their year) their happiness. Sitting with this realisation is important. Understand the position of trust you are in. No true friendship was ever healthy or easy with such uneven balance of power (try and think of one, in history, that ever worked out well!).

Make your expectations of your team clear – not only the level of productivity or detail you expect from your team - but also subtly set the tone for your relationships. You can choose a way of building rapport – be it speaking about a pet, a friend or where you come from but you don’t need to disclose your inner most feelings, desires personal stories and career ambitions.

Set the agenda for your relationships with your subordinates and do not sway.

2. SET YOUR BOUNDARIES

You may well have settled into a rapport with your team (or have been promoted internally) which means you can chat about your shared love of Schitts Creek (Moira is the best!), your favourite spots for holidaying in NZ and your dogs’ latest antics. None of these require you to share your innermost self and cross any boundaries. Just as it is important to set your own personal boundaries of what you will share, its also okay to share these with colleagues if the topic should arise. Do not be afraid to (gently) say “no” to any chat that you think crosses the line.

Many years ago, over a wine in a London pub garden a colleague asked me about why she had not received a salary increase and if I knew what others in the department earnt. Of course the HR-esque elephant in the room was I did indeed know this information. But there was no way I could possibly share this with her. I made a decision that day to make my life easier. I explained carefully that, although I appreciated the work we did together I did hope she would understand the role I played in the business. I requested that she not ask me to compromise that role as I couldn’t answer those types of questions. I gently coached her about speaking with her manager and asking for some feedback instead. Thankfully, she got it. Some other colleagues I worked with later on didn’t. The boundaries I had set kept my relationships at work healthy and open and I never felt compromised.

3. CHECK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YOURSELF:

One of the most powerful elements of the group training we have provided within our Managers Academy is the feeling of “shared experience” participants feel when interacting with Managers from other businesses. We often find that the subject of professional friendships with colleagues and subordinates comes up. It creates so much thought-provoking conversation and Managers often ask – how do I strike that balance?

My response is always the same - if you are coming to me asking me how to navigate a relationship at work you are probably already too close. Back off or slink gently into the shadows! The good news is you have self-awareness and that is the first step!

Ask yourself (for those of us who love a work friendship, keep this in the front of your notebook as a checklist)

a. Will I ever have to weigh in on a promotion or raise for this person or any person in their department?

b. Will I ever have to participate in disciplinary decisions for this person or any person in their department?

c. Will I ever have to help determine who in this person's department will be made redundant?

d. If something bad happens, would I be involved in conducting the investigation of this person or their department?

e. Do I help influence recruitment or termination decisions in this person's department?

If you answer yes to any of these, you are setting yourself up for a conflict of interest. Even the fairest, most balanced manager has emotions which would (consciously or unconsciously) influence their business decisions.

And no one wants to make their “friend” redundant – talk about awkward!

4. YOU ARE YOUR OWN BRAND

Perception is everything and for you, as an individual so is your reputation. Friends with work colleagues can create a lot of “chat” within teams…..Why? Because the perception is "I see Jane just got promoted to Senior Finance Business Partner. She's totally best friends with the Head of Finance - that's probably why she got identified as a high-potential employee."

No matter how fair you may be, no matter how well you've documented the reason for your decisions, if you're friends with a colleague your role has influence on then every decision around that employee will be tainted. There will be nothing you can do to convince the most cynical that it is anything but the result of your personal relationship.

It is important to realise that we all are just people. The position we hold doesn’t make us different from who we would be without our role. So, it goes without saying that throughout the course of our careers we will find a gem of a friend (or a few) here and there within our workplaces. I certainly know I have (you know who you are!).

The context of our shared workplace gives our friendships solidity and a shared experience which can foster a very special bond. You are experiencing things together that give your life greater meaning and purpose (that’s what work does, if it is good!). So often we want to share, explore (and often vent) about it. Building strong relationships at work can enrich your professional experience but it can also crush it.

Be careful to manage your relationships with maturity, defined boundaries and self reflection / self awareness and if the waters begin to feel murky, take a breath and take a step back….and think “one day…they will be an ex-work colleague and what fun that will be!”.

BFF Boss and Employee Relationships: How Close Is Too Close?