Steer clear of the "boss as buddy" dilemma, experts warn

The structure of the modern workplace has made it such that friendships are being formed between employees and managers. For one thing, people are spending more time at the office than ever before, so it's natural that their social circles are being filled out with other people in the workplace. In addition, as companies encourage managers to assume the roles of coach and mentor to employees, corporate-made barriers that once kept the two sides apart have crumbled. A management professor at the W. P. Carey School of Business has studied workplace relationships, and he sees the boss-as-buddy scenario as fraught with trouble. "There are contradictions between being a friend and being a boss," says Blake Ashforth. "And those contradictions are real. If you don't expect them, that's when they can cross the line and cause real trouble."

Decades ago, the corporate management model favored authoritarian bosses and subservient employees. No doubt that was a faulty structure, but has what replaced it proven to be any better? In the last decade, corporations have promoted the teamwork model of management in which bosses are encouraged to work closely with their employees as coaches or mentors. And while the authoritarian boss tended to breed resentment, the boss-as-buddy appears to be brewing its own type of problems.

An extreme example, but one that has gotten corporations and management experts talking, is the one seen every week on NBC's comedy "The Office." Steve Carell portrays Michael Scott, regional manager at the Pennsylvania paper-supply company Dunder Mifflin, who fumbles through the day believing himself to be his employees' best friend when in reality he appalls his subordinates with his inappropriate behavior.

According to management professor Blake Ashforth, the structure of the modern workplace has made it such that friendships are being formed between employees and managers. For one thing, people are spending more time at the office than ever before, so it's natural that their social circles are being filled out with other people in the workplace. In addition, as companies encourage managers to assume the roles of coach and mentor to employees, corporate-made barriers that once kept the two sides apart have crumbled.

On the plus side, that means people in the workplace have stronger relationships and are more open and trusting with each other, which manifests itself in getting the job done better. "But here's the problem," Ashforth said. "There are contradictions between being a friend and being a boss. And those contradictions are real. If you don't expect them, that's when they can cross the line and cause real trouble."

'A huge and inevitable contradiction'

Ashforth says there are three main concerns for a manager when he or she forms a friendship with an employee: favoritism, acceptance and openness. "[Friends] expect you to treat them as favorites, because you're friends right? There's a greater level of intimacy and expectation," he said. "But as a boss you simply must treat people equally. You cannot be seen to be playing favorites. You lose respect with the other subordinates.

That's a huge and inevitable contradiction of having a friend in the workplace. "Realize that there is a huge impact on the climate," Ashforth said. "The friendship may be going swimmingly, but you have other people watching this and they're thinking, 'What's going on? This guy is playing favorites.' It can actually poison the atmosphere in the office, even if the friendship appears to be going just fine."

Acceptance is a major part of keeping a friendship going, Ashforth said. But the type of near-unconditional acceptance most friendships require is not conducive in the workplace when a manager must pass judgment on an employee. "As a boss, it's your job to evaluate your subordinates and weigh in on how well they're doing," he said. "So you can't provide this unconditional acceptance.

You can certainly be supportive and provide constructive feedback, but you have to make hard choices about things like promotions and raises." The third casualty of friendship in the office is openness. Friends tell each other everything. Bosses have to keep secrets, particularly about personnel issues. "Friends expect you to be completely open with them, but as a boss, it's your job to keep some confidences about things that are going on in the office," Ashforth said. "Given those three things, you simply can't be a complete friend and an effective boss. There's a fine line to managing that."

Not just 'one of the guys'

It's a line that gets even finer when a former peer is now managing his former co-workers. In that situation, newly minted managers make a great effort to maintain their "one-of-the-guys" demeanor so they won't appear to be putting on airs. But that can cause failure for the manager and discontent all around. Jill Geisler, leadership and management group leader for the Poynter Institute, helps managers in newsrooms.

In her Poynter Online column, "Can the Boss be a Friend?" she advised commonsense and openness with former peers. First and foremost, she counseled new managers to tell their friends upfront that they won't and can't expect to get special treatment. When being sociable, she said to make sure to invite several people from the office, not just friends. She also cautioned that managers be prepared for if and when a friendship cools.

"As a friend, you never had to evaluate a buddy, assign their work schedules, determine their income level," she wrote. "Now you do — and it can strain a friendship." If it seems that most of the advice for workplace friendships — and the onus for when they start to cause problems — falls on the shoulders of managers, that's probably because higher-level corporate leaders are struggling to get hold of the situation themselves. In fact, researchers such as Ashforth have only recently started looking at ways that such complex work relationships can be handled.

"The changing nature of work has made it such that people interact more to get the work done — it's that idea of a project or teamwork or a coach," Ashforth said. "So, those conditions make for friendships. Corporations, in a sense, have brought this on themselves. So what's their responsibility for managing it? It's so tough I don't think they can do it effectively because when organizations try to create these rules and guidelines, they only nip around the edges. They don't get to the heart of it."

And the heart of it is that manager-employee friendships are a gray area that even Human Resources isn't equipped to handle. Sexual harassment, discrimination, romances gone bad — the more clear-cut the infraction, the easier it is to deal with. But what to do when a friendship sours? "Once you've created this strong emotional expectation, if it isn't sustained, it can really come back to bite you," Ashforth said.

"Organizations may have ethical guidelines about what you can and cannot do by way of fraternizing, but those are so generic that they aren't very helpful on the ground in making day-to-day decisions. Managers really are left to their own devices to solve it."

Bottom line:

• As bosses are being encouraged to act as coaches or mentors to their employees and more time being spent in the office, an increasing number of friendships are developing between managers and subordinates.
• Bosses have to beware of being perceived as playing favorites with employees who are also friends. In addition, bosses need to be aware that the acceptance required in a friendship can’t be maintained when a manager has to pass judgment on an employee. Also, the openness that is a hallmark of a good friendship can’t stand up to the necessary workplace secrets a boss sometimes has to keep.
• High-level corporate managers are struggling to deal with the "boss-as-buddy" phenomena, as a result leaving managers to find their own way through this tricky maze.