Be Friendly, Not Friends

When you are the boss, there is a fine line between being friendly and being friends with your employees.  Being friendly is asking how their family is doing, being friends is going to their family reunion.  Being friends with your employees won’t make you a better boss, instead it will make you a boss with more problems.Being a friend boss is not the way to go.  Employees will sometimes take advantage of your friendship.  Work might not get completed because they are your friend and they don’t figure you will mind or say anything…then you have to pick up the pieces.  And when that friendship fails, and it will fail because at some point in time, you are going to have to be “The Boss” and they aren’t going to like that…then you have employees who know things and telling things that you might not want your other employees to hear.

Being a friendly boss is a good thing.  Your staff will know they can come to you with work related problems and you will be there to listen and to help.  They know you will understand when they have a sick child and they have to leave early to pick them up.  They will want to do their job for you.

Treat everyone the same and then you know you haven’t crossed the friendly/friend line.  Don’t be afraid to smile at your employees or to ask them about their hobbies/family/etc., just make sure you don’t get too involved in their personal lives.