Your boss is not your friend.
And there are several reasons why
you should not be setting the goalposts
at being friends with your boss.
In fact, it might be a terrible idea that stalls
out your career.
And in this video, I'm diving into why...
Hello, my friends. And if you're new here, welcome!
My name is Jennifer Brick. I'm your new career bestie.
And I am so excited to be chatting with you today.
Around here we talk about career success,
navigating obstacles at work and toxic work environments.
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find out why you shouldn't be overly friendly with
your boss tap that like button and and let's get
into it...
Real quick here because if this is going to be
anything like my coworkers or not your friends
video, I know that I'm going to get a whole bunch
of comments that say that my boss is my best friend.
Okay, first of all, I'm a person on the internet,
I'm not the boss of you.
You make your own rules and
your own work life boundaries.
Second of all, I truly believe that when you have
a good working relationship, that friendships can
organically emerge.
I most certainly am friends with several of my old
bosses, and some of them are some of the people
that I count to be closest to me in my life. That
said, there are several reasons why being your
boss's friend should not be your priority.
And in fact, why you can't be friends, which is
the first thing that I really wanted to dig into
today, just at the surface level, you have a power
imbalance with your boss, your boss has authority
over your career authority over your promotions
authority over your performance reviews, can you
have an equal friendship when the equilibrium is
inherently thrown off? If you're friends with your
boss, you may also fall into some weird work life
boundaries thing. For example, if you are talking
to your boss about a relationship problem that you
have, are you talking to your friend? Or are you
talking to your boss, because let's be clear,
there is no distinction. They are a single
individual, you have a multifaceted relationship
with this person. However, they are still your
boss in every single one of those conversations.
And while if your boss is your friend, hopefully,
they're not going to bring in biases and
misconceptions. But think about from a
subconscious perspective how easy it would be if
you were sharing some personal obstacles that you
have for them to not want to add stress onto the
load by assigning us stretch projects or knowing
what's happening in your personal life think that
maybe you're not ready for that promotion. And if
you think these conversations don't actually
happen in real life, I can assure you that I have
witnessed them. And then we also have the element
of getting feedback or even bad news. If you were
friends with your manager, and they have to have a
difficult conversation with you. Not only is it
going to be more complicated for them, it's going
to be more complicated from you. It's one thing to
get a bad performance review from your boss, it's
another thing to get a bad review from your
friend, it feels really personal. So when you
merge these boundaries together, things can
actually start to hit you in different ways. It's
not always the best thing. And if you didn't catch
the conversation that I had with Mac for Mac TV,
this is one of the things that we hit on, I will
actually drop the link. I'll pop it up here
somewhere, but I'll put it in the description so
you can watch it after this one. If you want to
dive in. I'm actually really curious to hear from
you guys at this point as well. Have you ever been
friends with a boss has a boss that you worked
with ended up becoming one of your friends? Let me
know in the comments down below. Now I know that
some of the mean lady on the internet who's
telling you that you can be friends with your
boss, you're probably left wondering, Jennifer,
what kind of relationship should I have with my
boss, then it's great that you bring that on my
friend because that brings me directly into my
next point, which is that you should have a
positive and productive relationship with your
boss. If you guys have been hanging on here for a
while you know that I am a big fan of fostering
positive and productive relationships, both with
your co workers, as well as with your boss is
ultimately when we think about the relationships
and the dynamics that we have at work, we don't
need to be friends with anyone we work with hack,
we don't even need to like anyone that we work
with. However, there are a few things that you
need to strive for in the relationship in order
for it to be positive and productive. First of
all, you need to establish relationships that have
a foundation of respect, both you having respect
for them. And then having respect for you. I have
a whole video if you want to dive into that one
deeper overall, you should be a good person to
work with people should enjoy the experience of
working with you doesn't mean that they love you
and that you're the favorite person in the world
and all of that. But do you have a good working
relationship that you can collaborate and produce
results effectively. And finally, and this is a
big one because even if they don't like you, they
need to understand how your success and lifting
you up is advantageous for them. And this is
especially important with a boss because
especially when you get overly friendly with a
boss, they might kind of become dependent on you.
Maybe you're like their emotional support person
on the team that they can take their frustrations
out on about what is happening, or maybe there is
some kind of dependency that they really feel like
you're the person that they can turn to, for the
really important things. And because of that, and
because of the friendship, you might feel like you
need to stay on the team. And they may also feel
like you need to stay on the team. And that is not
where you want to be if you're someone who wants
to advance in your career. And in fact, this very
dynamic on the fact that you are friends with your
boss can end up creating career stagnation, and
even a toxic work environment. I recently work
with someone who is very close with her boss, like
personal friends, their kids play together, they
have birthday parties together in all of that
stuff. They were very close. However, because of
that strong friendship that she had with her boss.
He didn't take her experience and her feedback as
seriously, because he trusted that their
friendship was going to create loyalty. And so he
wasn't promoting her. He wasn't advancing her in
her career. And a lot of the complaints that she
brought to him as a trusted friend, were going
completely unaddressed. And how much does it suck
to be in a situation where you end up having to
hand in your resignation notice to one of your
friends. And on the flip side? How awful would it
be if your friend had to terminate your
employment. And that actually brings me to another
point. And then of course, especially when it
comes to friendships between bosses and their team
members or their employees, is that there are
inappropriate lines that should not be crossed.
Now I know a lot of you that watch this channel,
have issues with favoritism at work, and your boss
has their favorite and they have their little
friend. And it makes you feel like that you need
to be their friend in order to have the same
advantages. Or maybe you have a boss who thinks
that the office is a singles bar and his started
dating another one of your co workers. So I know
it's very easy for me to sit here and say, don't
be friends with your boss, when there are these
complexities that do arise that do create an
unequal playing field and result in favoritism and
unfair promotions, and all of those things, and
exactly how frustrating those things are. However,
those are workplace politics, things that you need
to deal with separately, and becoming friends with
that boss doesn't necessarily solve the problem,
again, build the positive and productive
relationship, like play those politics in that
way. And on the other hand, if you really enjoy
working with your boss, and you do end up becoming
friends, that's again, it's okay to it is
something that does happen. I again, I just think
that when you're setting out I know way too many
ambitious professionals who tried to be friends
and leadership, when that's not necessarily the
relationship that is the most advantageous for
them. And it's not necessarily the healthiest
relationship for them. Now, that's sad when you
are dealing with things like favoritism, and only
your boss's little best buddies are the ones that
are getting ahead and getting all of the
opportunities then you have a different issue at
hand. And in that case, you need to figure out if
you have a bad boss, who just doesn't really know
how to be a leader and is like doing things
unfairly. Or if you have a toxic boss, and that is
someone that is someone pathological because how
you deal with your boss when those dynamics are in
play is going to depend on what type of boss you
have. Now if you need to figure out who you're
dealing with go and watch this video right now,
where I help you figure out if you have a bad boss
or a toxic boss. Now this video helps you figure
out if you should be friends with your boss or
gave you a different perspective about friendships
at work, give it a like it really helps my channel
and it makes you my favorite career bestie if you
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As always, thank you for watching. Bye for now.