Dilemma
For many people, it is the place where they spend the most time after their own home: the workplace. It is therefore logical (and pleasant) that friendships are formed here. Can you also be friends with your boss? And vice versa: can a manager be friends with the staff under her or him? And should you want that?
Friendship
Various studies have been conducted in the Netherlands into friendships at work, but these always concerned ties with direct colleagues, not specifically with a manager. Last year, research from the Top Employers Institute showed that 43 percent of employees at large companies do not see their colleagues as friends, suggesting that 57 percent do. 26 percent said friendship with a manager could lead to preferential treatment.
That’s where the danger lurks, as Flores van Emmerik (59), a psychologist at HR consultancy Dijk & Van Emmerik, also sees. “If you enter into a friendly relationship with your manager, there is a risk of role mixing and resulting conflicts,” he says by telephone. Not that he wants to focus on this right away, because “as a psychologist I am in principle always in favor of friendship,” says Van Emmerik.
If you have a managerial position, you need to pay attention to a few things. “What you must first establish is that personal preferences and loyalty do not play a role in business conduct,” says Van Emmerik. “In addition, other staff members should not feel left out.” If these preconditions are met, friendship between a boss and employee can work well. “It is not actually possible to draw up more rules, as that will create an unpleasant bureaucracy and more arbitrariness.”
Risks always remain. “A good marriage can also die,” says Van Emmerik. “In theory you can separate the roles of manager and friend, but in the hustle and bustle of everyday life this is more difficult. You can forgive a friend who is always late. But if quarterly reports are always submitted late, that is no longer a charming trait.”
Friends and colleagues also play very different roles, the psychologist emphasizes. “A friendship is based on personal loyalty, trust, emotional security and contributes to meaning, motivation and social identity. In the business context, other values apply: predictability, reliability and competence.” It helps if people were already friends before they became colleagues, says Van Emmerik: “Then that bond transcends the context of the work, which makes it more sustainable and stable.”
CEO Tibbe Verschaffel (29) of Planet B, a Belgian company that develops sustainable versions of everyday products, experienced this danger firsthand. He founded the company with some student friends in 2020 and now has a team of 43 people.
“I started as a student entrepreneur and was ideologically driven to set up an impact company with my friends,” says Verschaffel from his office in Ghent. “You start with a small group, but gradually you get bigger, so you are suddenly ‘the boss’. That is not something I aspired to, I just got into it.”
Verschaffel still struggles with that role, in combination with the desire to have an open and friendly atmosphere at work. “I do one of the people “I want to be that person among everyone, not a boss,” he says. “Sometimes I want to have a beer with the employees and talk about small talk or personal matters. But when we do that, I mainly hear things about the company – although of course I like to talk about that too. As a boss, ‘Planet B’ is tattooed on my forehead.”
Verschaffel knows how difficult it can be to combine professional collaboration with friendship. For example, he had to fire a co-founder because he had outgrown his role – even though he didn’t see it himself. “That was one of the most heartbreaking things I ever had to do,” says Verschaffel, who finds it emotional to talk about this. “He was one of my best friends, as if you had to fire your mother. Then you worked so hard and one of your best friends comes and says that you are not in the right place.”
The friend in question was given a different role, but since then the contact has only been business-related. “Then you are really lonely,” Verschaffel looks back on his own position at that time. “Everyone is looking to me for a decision that I absolutely do not want to make, but that only I can make.”
The CEO especially wants to highlight the benefits of friendship in the workplace, also between managers and staff members. “We work together on a great product and we are committed to it 100 percent. As a result, morale is high and there is an open culture, without office politics. You then become attached to each other and many friendships have already been created within the team.”
Van Emmerik agrees. “People can be more themselves, express themselves more fully and come up with more original ideas,” he sums up the benefits. “The social support can also be greater and more unconditional and in theory you could make more mistakes.” He also sees these advantages in a start-up like Planet B: “Something like this arises from a common idea and a shared spark. If it is only about money, such a company will probably not survive for as long as if it also has certain values underlying it.”
So
Friendship with your manager can lead to a more pleasant working atmosphere and a more motivated team. However, there are also risks involved, such as preferential treatment or the loss of friendship. It remains important to ensure that personal ties do not play a role in business conduct and that there is a culture in which employees can address each other about such dangers.
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