May 29 2024
Josh Goodbaum: Hi, Amanda.
Amanda DeMatteis: Hi, Josh. What are we gonna talk about today?
Goodbaum: I want to talk about a practical problem for a lot of folks in sort of our age group who are moving up through the corporate ranks and that is: What do you do when your friends who used to be your peers are now your subordinates?
So, both of us started at the Garrison Firm. We started as associates; now we’re partners. There are people who used to be our peers who we didn’t used to have any authority over and now, all of a sudden, we do. We make decisions about what their compensation should be, about when they’re gonna take vacation, about the terms and conditions of their employment, and that comes with a certain level of responsibility.
I can’t imagine we’re alone in that. There are a lot of folks who experience going from a friend to a boss, and what kind of advice do you have for folks who are in that position? What do they need to keep in mind?
DeMatteis: This is a great problem to have, right? And congratulations if you have moved into a boss position and you’ve gone from, as they call it, “buddy to boss.” By the way, this is a concept that has been studied and analyzed quite a bit. You could Google this and find a ton of practical advice on it. But we thought we would give you our input from the employment law standpoint.
So, we’ve come up with three things that you should do if you’ve gone from buddy to boss at work.
The first one is: use confidence, not arrogance. You want to be able to show your employees how they should act at work; don’t tell them, right? None of us like when our leader is leading with an iron fist. So, if you want your employees to act a certain way – show up to work on time, be really prepared for a specific meeting, put your best foot forward when other members of management are around or however it is that you want them to act – you need to show them that. Don’t tell them. Be the boss that arrives on time, that has a positive attitude, that is always working on morale for the team and is always prepared. So confidence, not arrogance. Show, don’t tell.
Number two: you gotta mitigate risk. As a co-worker, maybe you went into work and you talked about, “Jeez! I had too many glasses of wine this weekend and I got a little drunk,” or “Hey, I’m having some marital issues and I just wanna talk to my girlfriend or my boyfriend at work about it.” You need to be really careful with that now that you’ve become the boss. You are an extension of this organization, wherever it is that you may work. So now, if you are talking to someone about drinking, sex, or relationships outside of work, you are doing so from the standpoint of a representative of this company, and that could land you and your employer in really hot water. And you might be making someone uncomfortable at work, even if that is not your intention to do so at all. But now that you have this difference in a role at work, you have to be really careful to not expose yourself or the organization for which you work to any type of risk going forward.
Josh and I know this. I went from Josh’s subordinate to his equal when I became a partner at the firm, and our relationship did, at this point, expand a bit, and we were able to talk about things a little bit more freely at work than we had before when we had this different hierarchy within the office. So, same is true for wherever you were.
Number three: This is the golden rule, right? This should be the same in every interpersonal relationship you have, whether it be with your spouse, your parents, your kids, your coworkers, or anyone else. Treat people the way you wanna be treated. Most of us have always gone into a working relationship where we have a boss and we aren’t the ones that are making all the decisions, and we want to be treated the way we treat others. We want to be treated with respect and reasonableness and fairness. And if you’re the boss, don’t check those things at the door, right? Now is not the time to forget about those basic principles of how you wanted to be treated when you were the subordinate. Now is the time to really sink into those things and to lead this organization or this team of people exactly how you’ve always wanted it to be led. Remember, what if one of your friends was the one that went from buddy to boss? Isn’t that how you would want them to treat you? So make sure you’re treating them with that same level of respect.
Again, congratulations on the new role, be reasonable, treat others the way you would want to be treated, mitigate that risk, and confidence, not arrogance.
Goodbaum: This is all really great advice, Amanda. I totally second everything you said and thanks for your guidance. Thank you all for watching, and we’ll see you next time.
Posted by Garrison, Levin-Epstein, Fitzgerald & Pirrotti, P.C. in Commentary
Tagged Amanda DeMatteis, Joshua Goodbaum
