In our Bud to Boss Workshop, designed to help leaders successfully navigate the transition to leadership, we talk about the importance of relationships between leaders and their team members. Within the least year or so I have been frequently asked two related questions:
“When we were peers I was friends with people on Facebook. Now that I am the leader, should I unfriend them?”
“What should I do when people I lead ask me to friend them on Facebook?”
My response, which will be summarized below, is typically to ask the group what they think, and normally the crowd is split; some say it is fine (or even important) to be Facebook friends (or follow on Twitter, or circle on Google+, etc.) with those they lead, while other are strongly opposed, saying that there is no need or room for that level of closeness and potential level of disclosure in a working relationship.
After they discuss/debate it for a bit, I share my thoughts. Here they are:
Reasons You Should
To maintain or nurture relationships. As a leader while you don’t need (and shouldn’t aspire) to be real-life friends with everyone you lead, but you should build solid working relationships. Facebook is one way to reach out, one way to be connected, and for certain employees an important way to do so.
To show personal interest. Being someone’s friend on Facebook allows you opportunity, perhaps outside of the hustle and bustle of the work day to show personal interest, which helps build working relationships and trust.
To unfriend may send the wrong message. If you were already someone’s Facebook friend, you get promoted and then choose to unfriend, it might send a confusing or difficult message to your former peers. The change in role is change enough, perhaps unfriending will cause more challenges to the relationship.
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Reasons You Shouldn’t
You don’t want to know that much. Chances are you heard the phrase TMI –or Too Much Information. If you are Facebook friends with your team members you might learn stuff you don’t want to know about them – or vice versa. Besides if they talk about their long party weekend and then call in sick on Monday . . . then you have a choice to consider, don’t you?
You might create too much closeness. If some people have Facebook and others don’t (or don’t use it) you might create perceived favoritism, because you know more or connect more with some team members than others.
You have no way to separate work life from personal life. Related to the first one, this concern is one of work-life balance. If you want to leave work at work, or if you want to use Facebook for “real” friends, why would you want to friend the members of your team?
Conclusion
Yes, these points expose opposite sides of the same coin, and no, I haven’t given you an answer to this question, “to friend or not to friend.”
And I’m not going to.
What I am going to do is give you four things to consider, as you make your decision. Hopefully these thoughts will help you make the best decision for you.
Consider how you use Facebook. If you aren’t on it much at all, or only use it to communicate with family, your situation might be different than if you already have 1000 friends and are connected to people at work. Additionally, you may not know that recent changes to Facebook have made it easier for you to segment your friends list. If you are concerned about seeing (or sharing) too much information with your employees, you can set up your friends list in a way that allows you to control what you see (and what you share.)
Think about boundaries. What work-life boundaries do you have at work, and consider matching them on Facebook. This will be clearer to you and those around you, and make any needed explanations for your decisions easier and more easily accepted.
Communicate your intention clearly. Just telling people that you are friending or not, isn’t enough. Whatever your decision, help people understand your reasoning. People may not like your decision or agree with it, but they will understand your intention and appreciate your candor if you take the time to make your intentions and reasons clear.
Accept the decision. Yep, it is your life, your leadership style and your decision. Hopefully this article helps you think it through and make a decision you can feel most comfortable with and one that matches the rest of your leadership style.
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Hi Kevin,
I still think Facebook as a product for family and closer relationships. If you have/had good relationship with your coworkers so it’s ok to have them at Facebook. At Twitter, I see almost the opposite, it has a professional way, or relationships, where you talk about you business, your business profile. For instance, I wouldn’t share birthday photos at Twitter because the crowd has other interests, differently from Facebook.
Now with Google+, they are trying to consolidate both aspects within the circles, let’s how it will work or last.
Hi Kevin,
One way to keep work and home separate on facebook is through the creation of groups. You can create a work group and place all of your work friends in that group. Then, you can define what that group can see. If you want to limit access concerning personal information or other items, you can define different privileges for different groups.
I just wanted to add that point as well.
Thanks!
Barry
Barry – This is certainly a great point – and one that might solve the quandry people find themselves in. Thanks!
Kevin 🙂
Hi, Kevin!
This is definitely an important issue. I would present another option. If your company has a FB presence you can “friend” your employees through that site, staying connected and building camaraderie while maintaining your personal FB page with your family and personal friends. If the company doesn’t have its own FB page, it’s worth establishing one.
Judi
I’m really surprised nobody mentioned LinkedIn…it could provide another opportunity to resolve this delimma – keep your friends and family on facebook and your professional connections on LinkedIn. 🙂
This issue highlights the sad irony that being a manager can actually make it harder to be a leader. Leadership requires relationship. To lead a person to become more you need to have at least some sense of who they are now. And to develop the requisite trust you need to have a personal connection. The phrase ‘personal leadership’ is repetitive.
Managers however are expected to remain objective, don’t get too close because you need to be fair, this is business. And then we turn around and wrongly place full responsibility for leadership on the manager. Wow. Better friend them on Facebook because they’re going to need all the support they can get.
I do believe a good way to answer this question is to take a look at how you use social media personally. For example, I rarely use Facebook. However, whenever I am on Facebook, my goal is to portray professionalism. Therefore, I friend my employees on Facebook. My Twitter account is more personal, so I never follow my employees on Twitter. This is how I maintain professionalism in social media.
Hi Kevin. Because I will often use Facebook as a means to evangelize certain things that I’m passionate about, including sports, politics, and religion, I just make it a rule to not become Facebook friends with anyone whom I work with, unless we were friends prior to working together. I often get people who I work with asking me to become “friends” and I just explain to them my personal policy and I’ve never had anyone who didn’t seem to understand where I was coming from. Considering how I use Facebook, I feel it’s a pretty prudent policy.
-Lance