How to Work for a Friend Without Ruining Your Friendship

Working for people you don’t like — or who don’t like you — is both a pain and a challenge. 

Working for a friend? That’s a lot more fun. It’s also its own sort of challenge for each of you. Maintaining the work dynamic and a genuine friendship requires a balancing act.

And that requires intention and consistency. 

Every friendship is different. Ditto for every work relationship. But these three principles, applied consistently and consciously, can keep the professional from damaging the personal.

Remember that your roles aren’t equal.

After work hours, you’re on the same level. But when you’re on the clock, you’re also on the org chart – the chain of command.

And your manager friend is the one with the final say.

By all means, be candid with any opinions you’re asked to give. And if you see a potential issue, speak up. Knowing your role at work doesn’t mean “going along to get along.” Friends are honest with each other.

But once your manager friend has reached a decision, back them up on it and do your best to carry out their directions.

Also, be wary of assuming that you have extra leeway in deadlines, performance expectations, hours, or any other work-related area. Also, avoid assuming you can always drop by “just to chat.”

Friends make allowances for each other off the clock. But if your manager friend is seen as playing favorites, that undermines everyone else’s trust in them. Help them out by modeling the behaviors they need from everyone on the team.

See things from their perspective.

Envy is a relationship-killer, and it’s sneaky. The danger of it creeping in is even higher if you’re working for someone who used to be your peer – and still higher yet if you both applied for the job they now have.

Your manager friend makes more than you do, most likely. So why aren’t they picking up the tab more often when you go to lunch? There’s envy sneaking in, and the effects are real: More than one-fifth of Americans have ended a friendship over money.

They get a company car, travel on the company dime, a healthy expense account? Must be nice! And there’s envy, sneaking in again. Before you know it, you’re making subtle jabs at their “fancy” life, and the friendship takes a hit.

Want to Learn More? Check Out Building More Effective Work Relationships!

Try picturing things from their perspective.

You get to leave at 4:30 every day? They might be in the office until 7 every evening, keeping up with all of their responsibilities.

You work best on your own? Loathe meetings? Half or more of their days might be spent in meetings that could have been emails.

You’re responsible for your own work, but they’re also responsible for your work, and everyone else’s work on your team.

Empathy isn’t always easy, even with friends. But it’s your key to avoiding destructive envy.

Avoid transactional thinking.

There’s a lot of give-and-take in both friendships and work relationships. That’s normal. We are a transactional species, psychologists say.

You stay late to finish up a report on Thursday, you get to take off a little early for the weekend on Friday. You go out after work, you take turns buying. There’s nothing wrong with that – and the more casual or businesslike the relationship, the more a transactional approach makes sense.

The problem comes when you start doing things for friends with the primary expectation of getting something in return. That’s not genuine; it’s calculating, and it can feel manipulative. 

So if you start to think of give-and-take with your manager friend not as just something that’s good to have, but as your due, they’re going to pick up on that. And if you’ve ever been manipulated by someone you considered a friend, you know how that can make you feel.

Played, betrayed, and wondering if the friendship was ever real in the first place.

There’s a reason you and your manager friend get along so well. Maybe it’s shared life experiences. Maybe it’s having the same values, the same sense of humor, the same taste in food or music or books. 

Hang on to those things. Remember why you’re friends in the first place. A disagreement at work doesn’t have to affect the friendship outside of the workplace.