10 Tips for Balancing a Personal and Professional Relationship with Your Team

When you’ve been working with certain people for a long time, you naturally develop a sense of kinship, and so, when your team has been with you for a while, it’s natural for them to become like family.

But when you’re the boss, it can be tough to strike a balance between your personal relationship with employees and your professional one.

Here’s how to keep the balance between your relationships at work:

THE PERSONAL SIDE

Listen
Pay attention to their gripes and concerns—both the spoken and unspoken kind. They may be awkward around you at first, with you being their boss, but they’ll quickly become more comfortable once they know you value their opinions and thoughts.

Don’t be “above” your team
Don’t treat your team as though you’re better than all of them. Nobody likes someone who acts above everyone else, even when that person is their boss.

Don’t take clients’ word above theirs
No matter how much clients pay, it’s investing in your team that will take your company higher. So if clients complain about an employee, make sure you get both sides of the story and are looking at the problem without bias.

Money isn’t always what they need
When they’re coming to you with a personal problem, don’t assume you can just throw money in their direction and that’ll be enough. Sometimes what they need isn’t finances, but moral support or understanding.

If your help needs to be in the form of financial support, don’t take it from the business
Note the emphasis on need, because as much as possible, money should be loaned only when no other option is available, and definitely only from a personal account, not that of the business.

THE PROFESSIONAL SIDE

Be firm about work matters
This includes deadlines, misdemeanors, complaints from others, and all other concerns that affect your work ethic and productiveness. No matter how close you have become as friends, the business needs to come first.

Be understanding, not a pushover
You need to know where to be firm, and where to be kind. This is on a contextual basis, so you’ll have to be prudent.

Limit discussions to a need-to-know basis
It may be tempting to get really personal when discussing a problem they have, but remember that it’s still a work setting, and you’re still the boss. So when they come to you, let them know that you’d prefer to know only what’s really important.

Don’t play favorites
It’s natural to feel closer to some people than others. But in a work setting where everyone needs to impress you, playing favorites is guaranteed to turn your team members away and make them resent you and each other.

Be honest with them
This includes when you’re being compassionate and when you’re being firm. Honesty and openness work both ways. They make you closer to your team, but they also cement the respect your team has for you as a boss and as a person.

Make ThePLAN to step back from the day to day activities in your workplace. Building rapport and collaboration with employees will not only be beneficial to your staff, but to your overall business as well.