Can a Leader be Friends with their Team?

The other day a supervisor participant in one of my leadership programs asked me ‘Can my team members also be my friends?’

My answer was ‘Do you have the capacity to be a convincing leader and a friend?’

Being a leader is ultimately about ones capacity to inspire another person or group of people to move from one point to another. To do this we have be convincing as a leader. We have to fulfill or surpass the leadership expectations of that person or group we intend to lead. Increasingly, those who work in modern professional workplaces expect their leaders to demonstrate a sense logic, fairness, objectivity, consistency and achievement. Why? Because education, especially the clear thinking element, has encouraged people to demand these qualities from leaders. Once upon a time, a workplace leader’s ‘acceptance’ was decided by achievement, decisiveness, forcefulness and/or social/hierarchical positioning.

The challenge of mixing friendship with leadership in the workplace thus becomes magnified by these expectations of logic, fairness, objectivity and consistency. For example Sarah misses out on her promotion to work peer Kevin who is close friends with Patrick the Supervisor. Patrick often openly speaks about his social escapades with Kevin to the team. Of course, Patrick is now faced with justifying the ‘promotion’ decision within the context of his friendship with Kevin. Immediately on the back foot, he is subjected to intense scrutiny by the wider team, perhaps faces unjustified criticism of unfairness and lack of objectivity. Suddenly team expectations are perceived (perhaps unfairly) to have been denied. Expectations not met or surpassed equals potentially de-motivated and disengaged team members. Now Patrick faces a problem because his capacity to inspire the vast majority of team members to follow him is reduced.

On the other hand you may argue that workplace leaders who are perceived to be ‘friends’ can, for a short time, be ‘convincing’ in a way that perhaps the less attached leader cannot. The ‘you’re my friend so I will follow you out of loyalty’ or perhaps ‘I know you so I trust you’ kind of thinking, overtime, watch that blind faith erode as team members’ who are not on the winning end of the managers decisions start to question the decision making’- overtly or covertly.

The convincing leader can be ‘friends’ with some workers and not others. Of course people in workplaces build bonds over time from which friendships emerge. Sometimes a leader was friends with a person before they became a leader or before they joined the organisation (stay tune for my forthcoming blog on 'Taking the Step’ especially for peers who become leaders). The convincing leader, however draws the lines so everyone in the workplace can see them. The lines become evident in their everyday behaviours. They don’t sit in their office or workspace with that friend day after day giggling, pontificating or in deep personal discussions. They don’t discuss those ‘you have to be my friend to know what I mean’ discussions throughout the work day. They don’t sit at the end of table for the whole of Harry’s farewell dinner with the ‘great friend’ laughing and chatting while members of the rest of the table are left to second guess the conversation.

Convincing leaders have thought about the consequences of their friendship. They probably have discussed the challenges of being a leader and a friend with the friend. When at work they are willing to be friendly with and show interest in all team members without favour. They are able to be transparent about their decision making. Convincing leaders in modern workplaces ‘move around the team’ like the great dinner host who ‘works the room’. They communicate with ALL team members, extrovert and introverts’ in a way they ALL feel like they matter.

There are few leaders that can or should be friends with everyone in their team. Simply because most people are discretionary beings. They make values based decisions about friendships. However we do have the opportunity of being a plausible leader to most by acting in line with expectations of what an effective leader is. Those expectations in the modern professional workplace tend to be based upon finding a balance between showing you care and are interested, and introducing and demonstrating what we call ‘professional’ boundaries.

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