Synopsis: After working with thousands of clients as their career and life coach I’ve witnessed how not maintaining the proper “clinical distance” in a relationship between your boss and yourself inevitably results in grief, sometimes for both sides, but more often, to the one in a subordinate position. This blog is about a few of those cases and how they ended. It is also a reminder about how to avoid such situations.

In some of my previous blogs I have written about how a boss should maintain their relationship with the teams they manage. This goes both ways: a team member should also try to maintain certain “clinical distance” between themselves and their boss to make it easy for the boss to be objective and for you to be able to hold the boss accountable for treating you as they treat everyone else in the team.

Sometimes, these relationship boundaries get blurry and create difficulties for both in ways that often end up hurting not just person(s) involved, but, unwittingly, others as well. I know of one client who came to me after she started having an intimate relationship with her new, married boss, thinking that this romantic involvement would help her career in getting what she wanted from him. Soon, another female member joined that team and the boss started flirting with her, instead, causing my client to wonder where their relationship was now headed. When the time came for her review the boss listed many grievances, including her job performance, which made it difficult for her to defend because he knew intimate details of how she worked as a result of their now soured relationship. Soon she ended up having to leave the company.

In another case my client and her boss lived close-by, so they two decided to carpool—a big mistake. The ride was long, so she ended up talking to him about all her family matters during that ride, with the boss listening to all her problems she was dealing with on her personal front. Her expectation was that boss would go easy on her because of her plight. Actually, the exact opposite happened: Recognizing that she was vulnerable and knowing that he could exploit her situation, he soon started giving her increasingly more work than she was able to handle, making it very difficult for her to continue performing her duties.

When she came to me for help, my immediate advice was to stop carpooling with her boss and have a discussion with him about her workload and how they should work together. Although they stopped car-pooling, this, too, did not end up well and she is now thinking of leaving that job.

In yet another case one of my clients has been a Silicon Valley resident for a long time and owns a home in a nice area on the Peninsula. When her new boss was transferred from the Midwest she decided to invite him to her home for a dinner as a welcome gesture and to get to know him better. When the new boss and his wife came to dinner that evening all they talked about was how nice their home was and how difficult it was for them to find something remotely similar even in a lesser neighborhood, because of the skyrocketing property values in the area. The boss was mortified when he realized in front of his wife that someone who reports to him has a nicer home than they could ever have in a coveted neighborhood. The boss never got over that sense of financial impotence. So, that dinner invitation, too, did not end up well for my client and she ended up having to leave the company because of the tension between her and the boss, mostly arising from that dinner invitation.

So, what are the lessons from these episodes for both parties? Here’s my list:

Boss

1. If you are promoted to a superior position and have close relationship with others in your team that you now are going to manage, as many do, make sure that your new relationship needs to be re-cast in light of your promotion. Before you assume your new responsibilities have specific discussions with your new team subordinates about how you plan to manage your relationship with them without alienating them. Many clients come to me with this problem, asking for some guidance on how to manage their new role in light of their past close peer relationships, some of them even feeling guilty for having received the promotion. Continuing the same relationship as before may not serve you both in a productive way if you want to do well in your new “boss role.”
2. In your new role as their boss meet with your entire team, then with them individually, and make it clear how you plan to manage their work, performance, and development. Unless you have this discussion with them collectively and then individually it is difficult to break the relationship pattern formed from the previous peer relationships. As you assume your new position you must also maintain that “clinical distance” with the team members without alienating them, if you want to be an effective boss.
3. It is common for some other members in your team to resent your promotion and to make it difficult for you to work with them in view of your new role. If you see this coming preemptively meet with those who are likely to act out and tell them what you expect from them and how your new relationship with them will help you both to succeed. If you see this not working get them transferred to another group as soon as you realize that this is unworkable. Tell your own boss that this may be something that needs attention from the get-go.
4. Do not hold any member of your team with your prior knowledge about their personal life hostage to that knowledge. You must treat them as equal and as if what you know is now none of your business. This is much more difficult to practice than it is to remember.
5. As you become their boss, if you realize that your predecessor had treated any team member unfairly during their performance reviews take the opportunity to correct the inequity promptly—even preemptively—to show your leadership and your fairness. This will help you get quick credibility as a fair boss with your new team.

Team members

1. Maintain a respectable distance between you and your manager, even though your manager was your peer before they got promoted. Help them maintain the proper “clinical distance” between you two to make the new relationship work better for the both of you and the entire team.
2. Avoid any temptations listed in the first part of the blog (fraternization, carpooling, dinner invitation, among others) to keep your relationship trouble-free with your boss. If you must invite your boss for dinner take them to their favorite restaurant, avoiding your home, if you can.
3. Do not share any personal information about your health, family member’s health, or your financial difficulties with any of your colleagues. I have seen instances where such colleagues then taking this confidential information you shared with them to their boss to ingratiate themselves with them to get an edge over you.
4. Do not complain about your boss to any of your team members, for the same reason as listed in #3 above. Instead, learn how to have direct and candid discussions with your boss about your needs and how you can work better with the changes one or both of you need to make.
5. Do not go to your skip boss to complain about your boss, hoping that the skip boss will keep that conversation confidential. Even if the relationship between them is not close it is inevitable that your complaint will filter it down to your boss sooner than later. This may result in exacerbating the very situation you are trying to mitigate. Instead, learn how to have direct conversations with your boss about what is bothering you and what needs to be corrected. Ditto applies when you are tempted to go to HR to lodge a complaint. Unless it is something serious HR typically does not favor the employee’s view and support their actions; they are there to protect the company.

If you understand the reason behind each of the 10 tips above and the rationale for keeping the right distance in your relationship with your boss it will help you manage your career more effectively and will keep you in control of your own destiny.

Good luck!