How To Be Friends With The Subordinates Who Work For You

A guide to Healthy Work Environment by one of the Top 10 MBA colleges in Hyderabad

Studying in an one of the MBA Colleges in Hyderabad would take you to a career path where you would have to lead a team of people. Working as a leader can be a lonely job and you might have to deliver difficult messages, take tough decisions and keep them confidential till the time is right.

Even under such boundaries, being a social animal he is, it is totally possible to develop a friendship with someone in your organisation. It is to note that peer to peer friendship at work is something totally different than having a power imbalance with your friend. Can a leader be friends with his subordinate and if yes how would it work given that he has to keep secrets from his friend from time to time.

If your subordinate friend understands of your roles and responsibilities in the organization, he might have the tendency to withstand such challenges. But not everyone is equipped with such muscle and in that case, here are five tips on how to manage a friendship with your subordinate:

Choose Your Friends Carefully - Remember the first day at school, your mother told you to choose your friends wisely before kissing you goodbye. This advice is especially relevant when you start to work. Having a friend who is also your subordinate needs a great level of judgement as well as understanding. Both parties need to be mature and should have enough self-esteem in order to build the trust over time.

Set Right Expectations From The Start - This will make sure that your friendship lasts no matter what. In future, you will have information and responsibilities that would be beyond the scope of your friend, and you should be upfront about it right from the start. Be very frank and transparent what can you share and what you can’t. This would help create an expectation level and hence lesser misunderstandings in future.

Be Transparent About Your Friendship With Others - Being friends with someone in the team can be tricky business as others in the team might feel that you are partial towards your friend. However, acting as if it does not exist would raise even more suspicion as if you friends with someone, people will notice no matter what. In such scenarios, be upfront about your friendship and assure your other team members in terms of words as well as actions that your friend won’t be favoured in any wrong way.

Do Your Job - You are hired to do a job. It would be challenging at times. But, keeping your personal and professional life separate would come in handy here when there is some difficult communication you need to carry out with your friends. This could be regarding the bonus, or laying off or that long due promotion. Be direct and prompt in your communications. Do your job and assure them that you still want to be friends at the same time giving them a little space to assimilate the news.

Mutual trust and transparency are the basis of a friendship. Having a friendship with your employee can be tricky but handling it in a mature and transparent way can make this possible and would go a long way in keeping your friendship healthy.