Looking for some advice
Looking for some advice on todays post please. Been thinking about this a lot lately, so please don’t just sit back, but participate…Please!
For those of you who in any kind of leadership positions, in the family, in a small group, a church, or a business, I’d like to know what you think the proper balance is between leadership and friendship. Can a person be a friend with someone they lead? How does this affect the leadership role? In what ways do the leadership roles affect the friendship?
Related posts:
Just read this story today in the ajc – http://www.ajc.com/wireless/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2008/07/31/young_landscaper_business.html – you’re not the only one struggling with the concept.
We both know the struggles of these relationships.
(this last sentence reminded me of some advice I wanted to ask of you – give me a ring when you get a chance)
Can’t say i’ve ever mastered this concept.
when I think of leadership and friendship, I think of it differently than teacher and student relationship. Part of being a leader in the home, in the church, and even in business (I believe the principles are across the board, not different hats) is taking the lead to make decisions but it is never a superior/inferior position in that the leader makes those decisions apart from the relationships of the “team.” A good friendship recognizes the leader to make decisions and the leader recognizes the helpfulness and wisdom and honesty that friends can speak into their lives about. The more both sides recognize that both sides need each other and that the role is more like co-workers, a team, a joint effort, but with unique roles and responsibilities the better it will be. Holding back insight and direction and communication and honesty and competence and vision and hard work because one side feels like they will hinder the friendship over accomplishing a mission seems to both hinder the relationship as well as the mission.
Obviously there are some relationship that look more like friendship than leadership and some look more like leadership than friendship and it’s hard to be sweet friends with everyone at the same level. But I think any leader would have to admit that their effectiveness is often reflective on their ability to create authentic friendships with those they lead. Those who are being lead want to know that the leader is honest, inspiring, knows where they’re going, and knows how to get there. This comes from spending time with people, building relationships.
A month or more ago, you had axed what other stuff is worth reading… that was after you had posted about Dungy’s book. Well, Dungy is good. But the one you really need to study is Vince Lombardi. More than anyone else I can think of, he extrapolates how the lessons learned from football apply to life in general. On leadership:
“The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.”
I think one could insert apply the concepts of “leadersihp” and “friendship” in the context of the above quote… there SHOULD be some tension there. While a leader certainly CAN be friends with those he is leading, he must always be conscious of his role as a leader and not do anything that wouuld compromise the RESPECT he must command in order to lead. So, for example, in your position, I would think you could afford to be “friends” with those you are not leading on a different level and in a different way than with those you are leading…. you could probably be a lot more casual, a lot more relaxed, and a lot more HUMAN with people you are not leading. And that’s because you aren’t walking that tightrope with these people… there need not exist any of that tension that Vince Lombardi talks about. You don’t NEED to command the respect of such people, or at least not to such a degree, as you need to command of those you ARE leading.
Now, put this in context of a work environment… I am friends with my boss. I can talk to him about what’s going on in my life and so forth… but I have noticed that I, as the underling, have to be the one who breaks such ice. He has only very recently – and I’ve known this guy for over 10 years – started to share similar stuff that’s going on with his family. And I suspect that’s because he is very conscious of the image he must present to those under him and to his clients. And I know I can joke with him, but I am very careful about how much I make him the subject of any jokes. I have done it from time to time, but I am careful about it and haven’t hurt any feelings. But no matter how you cut it, the relationship between me and my boss is not as intimate as those I have with some other coworkers – coworkers I have often known for significantly less time than him.
Now, put this in context of the family environment. And what do we quickly get to is the whole idea of our kids being our friends. I have seen some parents who refer to their kids as “buddy” and so forth and really try to be friends with their kids first and parents second. I think what is more important is to command the respect of the kids… we need to treat them as PEOPLE and allow them to make choices, sure, and we need to tell them we love them and ask them how they feel and so forth. But when the spam hits the fan, we are still PARENTS first and we need to command enough respect in the family that we can effectively lead.
In summary, then, I’d say YES, leaders can be friends with those they lead, BUT… the character of that friendship will be different from the character of friendships with people they don’t lead. And I would hypothesize that the reason for this is the level of RESPECT a leader must command… the leader must be PERCEIVED as strong, and INTIMACY can shatter that perception.
So, now, here’s another can of worms we’ve opened. There are effective leaders who have significant weaknesses but who maintain the PERCEPTION of strength by avoiding intimacy, especially with those they lead. And then there are what I will call “true” leaders who are truly strong and who can achieve a level of intimacy with those they lead because they are INTERNALLY strong and, therefore, their is no facade of strength to be shattered through intimacy with the people they lead. That’s one hypothesis, anyhow.
Then there’s the hypothesis that EVERYONE has some weaknesses and intimacy will necessarily reveal those weaknesses, so a leader needs to be careful about how intimate he becomes with those he leads because a leader needs to be perceived as STRONG. Again, this brings us back to the tightrope and the tension that Lombardi talks about.
Marty Holman: blogger/editor
that’ll cost you bud!
I think it depends on the type of leadership position in question. (I think Uneasy Rider makes some good points in this regard.) What I mean by that is that different leadership positions have different requirements that impact your ability to truly be “friends” with those you lead. Speaking strictly as a business guy, I think you have to be very careful about the level of friendship you develop with those you lead because you will inevitably be making decisions that impact the livelihood of those individuals, perhaps even having to formally discipline them or even fire them. Those decisions must be made without bias that would otherwise be introduced with individual friendships. So in those cases it isn’t necessarily a matter of “ability”, but rather a matter or “appropriateness”. I think of it kind of like having children; you can and should love them and have outstanding relationships with them, but it should always be clear that you are not, in fact, “peers”.
Now, in a different context, I can see that being completely different. However, I think there remains a fundamental hurdle on the other side of the coin. Can people who are being led truly be friends with their leaders. And to that, I would say no, not until they decide that they are peers. People have a fundamental issue with accepting leaders as “normal” because they need to “believe” that you aren’t like them. They want to believe that you know more than they do. They find comfort in the thought that the burden is comfortably in the hands of someone more capable than themselves. Perhaps this is a natural yearning to be in the arms of the Father that we commute to our earthly leaders. I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard people say, “I could never be in a cell group with (pastor) Tom.” Why do they say that? Because they are uneasy with the prospect of two things; 1) “revealing” themselves to “the leader” and 2) realizing that he is just like them.
So if it is necessary to think of our leaders on some level as peers in order to have true friendship with them, then perhaps the question is; are we willing to be led by our peers rather than by the caricatures we have constructed of our leaders?
And now I will stop typing before this turns into a book.
Some great points guys! Thanks for your input. I soaked in every word. As usual Clay, you had the last word. Good stuff.
Wow. Interesting stuff. If Clay makes it back here (or if anybody else has some thoughts I’d be interested)
To what extent should a leader work at smashing the natural tendency of followers to build them up? Clay implies that it’s either impossible or not wise to to disabuse people of the notion that the leader is somehow superior… I wonder if I’m understanding his gist correctly.
On a broader level, my thoughts to throw into this:
While a lot of burden ought to be on the leader we should put some on the follower… if you and I are hanging out there is a burden on me to not take advantage of our friendship… Both of us have a duty to be clear about what happens between Jeff and Marty as friends versus what happens between Jeff and Marty as church member to pastor…
Marty, this is a GREAT question. Here is the way Erwin Mcmanus answered the question
this way
http://erwinmcmanus.com/friendship-dilema/