4 Steps to Bonding Appropriately with Your Team

Although you’re exceptionally proud of the team you’ve built and likely crave to have a relationship with every individual, you have to proceed with caution.

As a leader, there’s a very fine balance between being the “boss” that everyone looks up to and being a “friend” that struggles to make difficult decisions.

Are You a “Boss” or a “Friend”?

In an ideal workplace, you’d be able to have the best of both worlds.

You’d establish clearly defined boundaries that label you as the boss, but you’d still be an approachable person whom your employees feel comfortable seeking support from.

However, it’s astonishingly easy to go too far to either side of the scale. This can land you directly in troubled waters.

You need to push yourself toward the middle in order to best support your workplace; protecting your feelings as well as your team’s.

How to Develop an Appropriate Relationship With Your Team

With the aid of self-discipline, it’s perfectly possible to build an appropriate – still meaningful – relationship with each of your employees.

This way, you don’t alienate your team by acting distant (which would be the last thing you’d want), but they would still respect you as their leader and treat you accordingly.

A friend might let them get away with being late every day. A boss wouldn’t.

Step 1 – Assess Your Position

Before you start adapting your behaviour to encourage your employees to view you in a certain way, you need to get a firm grasp of where you currently are on the scale of boss vs friend.

• Are you distant and unfeeling or ever-present and involved?
• Are you new to the workplace or have you been there a while?
• Are you comfortable with your team or do you feel awkward around them?

Step 2: Define Your Boundaries

Once you’ve identified your current perception, you need to define your boundaries and make it very clear to yourself what’s acceptable and what isn’t.

For instance, do you want to be treated like a standard colleague, participating in seemingly-harmless employee banter? Or would you prefer to draw a line in the sand?

Step 3: Facilitate Interactions

To transition from either end of the boss vs friend scale into the middle, organise suitable interactions with your employees.

A boss might only communicate with their team in the work environment, while a friend would regularly go to the pub with them in the evenings.

As a middle ground, you can attend lunches (best for 1:1 situations) or plan team-building activities for everyone.

Step 4: Be Present

In order to maintain the bond between yourself and your employees, put in the effort. Remember, even close friendships fade over time.

Try to be a present leader that checks in with your team enough to offer support when it’s needed, but not so much that you quickly become overbearing. Communicate with intent and speak in a way that develops a friendly but professional relationship.

This article was published as a part of our ongoing series, “The Leadership Logs” – which aims to give top talent the tools they need to navigate unfamiliar and evolving climates.

Our previous piece, “Defining Your Leadership Style” provides crucial advice for being a consistent and supportive member of your team.

Our next piece, “5 Ways to Fall in Love With Work Again” discusses the dangers of losing your passion and looks to spark it within you once more.