Is it possible to become good friends with your staff while maintaining your position of leadership?

If in your Moments of Truth you choose to be a friend first (who happens to be the boss), you'll likely run into problems with your own boss about your decision-making, and judgement.

If in your Moments of Truth you choose to be a boss first (who happens to be a friend), you'll likely run into problems with your friends feeling you've let them down.

With respect to where, when, and how to draw the line, YOU have to decide what works for you AND have an open and honest conversation about it with your friends so they're not blindsided when you suddenly shift from friend to boss. The more you can help them know when that's likely to be, the easier it will be for them to accept it in the best possible light.

Don't be surprised if THEY start pulling away from you, though -- after all, you are their boss, which makes you very dangerous should you happen to not like their good-natured chiding one pressure-packed afternoon.

The most important quality of a leader in their relationship with their people, it to be able to have integrity. You don't need to be liked, but you do need to be respected.

So the question is this: can you have a friendship and still maintain the integrity necessary to be their leader? If you can achieve that, then yes you can be a friend as well. But the danger is that you try too hard to be a friend and end up loosing their respect and integrity.

Possibly, the question should be, can the people you lead cope with being a friend as well as having you as their manager and leader? If they can't, then it will not be possible.

I think yes provided you draw a line clearly between professional and personal relations. When you are in office, you must act as professionals and maintain position of leadership. I donot think it will affect your personal friendship if your subordinate is mature. If he is immature, then there is no need to make him friend.

Justin,
Like the others my short answer would be no. Can you and should you appreciate and understand the "whole person" that represents each employee yes, should you go beyond that understanding and develop a more intimate relationship I would reccommend not.
At some point in your relationship you will need to look at what is right for the organization as opposed to what is right for the individual. We can say in Pollyhannah like fashion that should never present a conflict or that both parties as mature enough to recognize that, but my experience is it simply doesn't happen.
The other thing it does is creates at least the perception of an unequal relationship between those people and people who are only subordinates- not "friends".
One of the obstacles with cross gender mentoring is that people of the opposite gender often get left out of the "bonding" rituals where a lot of that informal mentoring goes on. I have also seen the boundaries get blurred- when am I speaking as a "friend" and when am I speaking as your "boss"?
So sorry to be a buzz kill, but be friendly, but not friends...

Hi Justin,
I wouldn't totally outrule the possibility. Yet, once one is becoming a boss, supervising a friend, it is next to impossible to remain a true, good friend. The position is demanding and requires a different behavior and addresses loyalty in a different context. Conflict of interest can cause unpleasantness between friends, leading from misinterpretation to mistrust. There is, basically, no win-win situation as, like mentioned before already, the friend feels either way, one point in time, sometimes sooner others later, unfairly treated. Often friends expect ‘favors’ one can’t and shouldn’t deliver. The expectation from a friend is very different than that of a colleague. The friend will not understand, feeling he/she is being ‘rejected’ even if one applies the best possible professional and/or friendship approach.
Having been a trusted friend once and now being a supervisor (boss) calls hard on a friendship. Only if both parties understand the boundaries and more so respecting such, a friendship, having been before the change of situation might has a chance remaining. More often it will come to an end.

In a word, 'no'. Friendly behavior, yes, but friends, no.

What team members need from their supervisor is not friendship; team members need their supervisor to manage their performances. The supervisor is the only person who can do this. This means that sometimes leaders need to do things for the good of the team's performance that you would never do to a friend. Things such as:

1. giving negative performance feedback
2. taking corrective action
3. reprimanding
4. terminating

When someone is made a supervisor (leader), the organization confers on that individual the authority to do certain things, an authority that other team members don't have. For example:

1. assigning work (or witholding it)
2. assessing performance
3. making compensation and promotion recommendations
4. representing the interests of the organization to team members, and vice versa
5. interpreting company policies in cases where some judgment is required

Exercising this authority, which is a job requirement, may be inconsistent with being a friend. The authority (position power) changes the relationship between leader and team members in fundamental ways, and, in my view, precludes friendships.

Even if a leader tries to befriend every team member, it's only human nature that some friendships will be stronger than others. People notice things like that, and it opens the way to suspicions of playing favorites.

Reflecting on his military career, Colin Powell wrote 'Leadership is lonely'. A hard truth, but no less true for being hard.

I think the answer is somewhere in between, in the grey areas of friendship and professionalism. To me the caveat is that you actually like the person who works for you. Then there are groups or teams who need both friendship, openness and direct feedback to be successful.

For leaders I would urge them to err on the positive / friendly side first when dealing with employees. The leaders job is the set direction and lead by example, so if the leader wants to be treated as friend by her employees then they need to act like one first, at least until another approach is called for.

Great question Justin. Leaders model healthy boundaries for their employees so I might err on the side of always being kind and compassionate to everyone but making sure that I don't become more friendly with one employee rather than another. It's probably best to pursue personal friendships in situations where no performance or work-related issues will be affected and there is little chance for the appearance of favoritism.

You can't be a buddy when you're the boss. When you're in a position to evaluate someone's performance and affect their career, the relationship can never be one of equals. Unfortunately, many managers fail because their desire to be pals with their staff keeps them from having difficult conversations and making tough decisions. To be effective, managers must become comfortable with the power of their position and the distance that automatically creates.

At the same time, however, you certainly can be a friendly, caring, and concerned manager. You can be interested in your employees' well-being, share appropriate information about your lives, laugh and have fun together. But you have to do this with all employees, not just those that you particularly like. If you begin to be "friends" with certain people, you will be viewed as playing favorites and the morale of your group will suffer.

So the moral of the story is this: Be "friendly" with all your employees, but find your "friends" somewhere else. And if you find yourself in the difficult position of suddenly supervising people who are already your friends, recognize that there are now some boundaries between you that didn't exist before. You will need to discuss this issue, because your relationship is inevitably going to change.

Save the "friendships" for another venue.

Years ago my late husband hired his friend. I counseled against it -- but, he marched forward, because he knew there would never be any performance issues, etc.

About six weeks later, the President of the company (a large company), came to my husband and told him that his "friend" had called in one of his employees, had him sit down, and the phone rang. It was someone from the yacht club wanting to talk about a boat for sale. This "friend" had his employee sitting there for over twenty minutes before ending the call. The President told him he had to deal with it immediately. He also told him there were other issues, major issues, with his "friend".

My husband said he was stunned that his people would not have come to him about his "friend's" behavior, given the "friend" reported to him. The President simply said, "they knew you were friends and they figured it would be unwise to say anything".

Enough said.

Great question and great answers.

I fully agree with the thoughts that one should be 'friendly' with all team members, and try to avoid being 'good friend' with a just a couple of them.

Though it is very difficult to avoid such situations. There are people with whom you may become 'more friendly' cause your minds meet, or there is a natural tuning or maybe the nature of work demands more daily interaction with a few, than others.

Other team members might see this close 'professional' relationship as 'being friends', and depending on their own maturity, may make their own deductions. Though you may be fair and unbiased with everyone, many in the team may not be able to understand this.

It is better to be careful. A leader should not only be fair, but seen to be so.