Effective Management and Friendship are Not Mutually Exclusive
Welcome to “Driving Businesses by Developing People” written by me, David Huynh. For those who do not know me, I am a people-focused business professional who builds team members to generate results. Thank you for joining me. If you are not on my email list yet and want to dive deeper into the intersection of business and people with me, you may subscribe here:
When I first became a manager, I was trying to be a friend and a mentor to my team members. Unfortunately, I was doing a poor job at both. I received advice from my manager at the time, who suggested that I should avoid becoming close friends with my teammates, because it would become difficult to gain their respect; and without their respect, I would not be able to lead them. I did not want to take the advice. I did not want to be a manager that solely drove results. I wanted to be an effective manager and genuine friends with colleagues concurrently. Through trial and error, I discovered that balancing effective management and friendships is driven by painting a vision to develop rapport, to promote feedback, and to connect the vision to tasks.
Work quality and manager-team relationship dynamics can be plotted against one another through the following chart:
Work quality ranges in effectiveness and the manager-team relationship ranges from strictly professional to genuine friendship. The shaded triangle represents what many individuals perceive as the possibilities - that high work quality and a strictly professional relationship or low work quality and a genuine friendship can exist, but high work quality and genuine friendship is perceived as out of reach.
Today, I aim to describe how high work quality and genuine friendship are possible. Referring back to our chart, the shaded area for possibility should look like the following:
To help illustrate these two steps, we will discuss them from the perspective of two distinct individuals.
The Focused Professional has joined the team as a senior manager. This individual is viewed as an authority and produces above average work quality. Concurrently, this individual has had a hard time integrating into the social dynamics within the organization. Other team members do not feel comfortable discussing non-work topics with her or him.
The Newly Promoted Friend has worked on team for a few months or years and has become friends with everyone in the process. Once this individual is promoted, they have trouble gaining respect from peers and is not viewed as an authority due to their history as another friend at the office. This reputation leads to low work quality coming from this individual and/or their team.
Develop Rapport
Rapport is a matter of association. When a team member thinks of us, what do they associate with us? Do they think we genuinely care about them as a person or do they think we only exist to assign them work? If they associate the latter, we will find it difficult to build genuine friendships. Therefore, we need to aim for our team members to consider us as an individual who truly cares about them.
Our team members will associate us with the first few thoughts that they hear from us, because the start of every conversation will be perceived as our 'top of mind' thoughts. So to demonstrate that we truly care about them as individuals, regardless of how 'busy' a period can be, the first thought should be about them. The second thought can be about the work that needs to get done. Thinking about our team means taking time to ask supportive questions, such as "How was your weekend?" or "Can I help guide you on your existing work?", before diving into additional business needs.
After demonstrating our concern for our team, we can then transition to discussing more work. We should start this discussion by painting a vision, which means outlining the overarching goal or objective before explaining the tasks. Rallying our team behind a goal will invoke emotions of camaraderie and respect, which will drive the team to work towards the objective and improve work output. These camaraderie emotions will concurrently demonstrate that we care both about the goal and the individual.
On the contrary, if we jump directly into assigning tasks to each individual, we will be viewed as a dictator and associated with completing tasks. Taking this route would make it difficult to improve the relationship dynamics. To build a genuine friendship, our rapport with our team members needs to be associated with genuine care and achieving a vision.
The Focused Professional may try to develop rapport by purchasing nice meals or gifts for their team, but if the feeling is not genuine, the relationship dynamic will not be improved. These are nice gestures, but need to be supplemented with genuine thoughts that show she or he cares about the team. As discussed above, these genuine thoughts needs to come in the form of asking supportive questions and painting a vision.
The Newly Promoted Friend may have already built strong rapport, but painting a vision can improve upon their relationship dynamics by building a sense of camaraderie and respect from team members.
Promote Feedback
After we have a painted a vision to develop positive rapport with out team members, we need to start a two-way conversation with our team members. In the context of work, this means promoting feedback and pausing regularly for comments and questions.
In a former article about conducive managers, I discussed how managers can promote feedback. In short, managers need to admit their ideas can be improved upon, which will open the door for feedback. After received, the feedback needs to be fairly considered and adjustments should be made accordingly. Lastly, any successes due to the feedback or failures due to a lack of feedback need to be attributed accordingly to reinforce positive habits. For a deeper dive into these concepts, feel free to peruse through my article "Conducive Managers Promote Healthy Conflict".
At the end of the day, we have painted a vision, but this vision needs to be flexible and adaptable to our teams needs. Respect is solidified from listening to and taking feedback. Goals and tasks that are formed jointly with our teams will create greater relationships. Feedback from the team should also stir conversation to work towards a better solution for everyone, which in turn will improve work quality.
The Focused Professional can improve their working relationship with their team by creating a channel where the team is comfortable communicating upwards.
The Newly Promoted Friend has had issues with work quality and garnering respect, but can improve upon these by building a dialogue around feedback. A manager should never rely on her or his brain alone. By promoting feedback, team members can contribute their ideas, which the manager or other team members can further build on. Demonstrating the ability to listen to and process ideas is critical for gaining respect.
Connect Vision to Tasks
After we have painted a vision and promoted feedback, we need to connect the vision to tasks. If we can build a clear connection between the vision and the tasks, we will also build greater trust with our team. If our team trusts us more, they will be more willing to listen to our future visions and future tasks, which are necessary in order to both improve relationship dynamics and work quality.
As managers and friends, we should have the best interest of the company and team members both in mind. This means all tasks we assign need to have a purpose. If we lead team members astray with pointless tasks, we will generate poor work quality and marginalize our relationships with our team members. To avoid this, we need to understand the connection thoroughly enough such that if a team member to ask, "why are we doing X task?", we can confidently tie X task to the vision. If we cannot build this distinction, we either to figure it out or get rid of the task.
The Focused Professional often falls into the trap of assigning work for the sake of keeping their team members busy. This is flawed mentality that will hurt relationship dynamics and also produce lower work quality. Instead, said individual needs to focus their team on only executing activities that will drive the vision forward.
The Newly Promoted Friend may be unsure how various tasks are connected to the vision. Therefore, before setting off the team, said individual needs to thoroughly understand the connection, so that they can be sure the team is driving in the correct direction. If done correctly, this guidance will result in higher work quality and greater perceived authority.
Closing Remarks
Do you need to be a good friend to a good manager? No. But in my experience, the best managers genuinely care about their team members and driving results concurrently. The best managers will develop a rapport that elicits emotions of camaraderie in their team. The best managers are conducive and promote feedback from their team. The best managers can thoroughly explain how tasks are connected to the overarching vision.
The best managers produce strong results by building strong relationships. Therefore, effective management and friendship are not mutually exclusive.
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