What is your attitude on the issue of friendship between managers and their subordinates? Are you one of those bosses who tend to make friends with their subordinates, which may negatively affect your authority, or to those who reject friendship with subordinates, which may hurt you as a person? Either way, you probably feel that the correct path is somewhere between these two extremes. The following tips for senior executives, originally published on Psychology Today by Peter Bregman, management consultant and author of numerous articles and books on leadership, may be useful.
1. Be committed to your business goals
Decide what you want to achieve professionally and understand that this will require making difficult decisions. Express your goals openly and enthusiastically and be aware that not everyone will agree with you.
2. Prepare for emotions
Every manager must count on strong emotions - both their own and those of others. Keep in mind that there will be times when people around you will express anger and resentment. In this case, Bregman points out that although it may sound cruel, it's not your problem. A manager should listen to his people and support them, but not to the extent of letting them take the company in a different direction than desired.
3. Try to keep friends
Keeping up a friendship with a subordinate despite his disapproval and strong emotions is very difficult. The only thing a manager can do is to work hard on developing his leadership skills, which in this context especially includes integrity, empathy, listening, clear expression of ideas and setting boundaries.
4. Prepare to lose friends
In some cases, you will not be able to influence the way your friendship develops, even if you manage to clearly define your role as a leader, gain great emotion coping skills and learn how to maintain friendships. You cannot force anyone to be your friend. Therefore, you have to accept it when someone does not want to be your friend based on your decisions at work. You friends outside the company may help you in these situations.
-Kk-