Women tend to make friends at work. It's part of our biology. Earlier, we discussed research at UCLA which found that females (humans and other animals) are apt to respond to a threat with a behavioral response that the researchers termed "tend and befriend." When we use this evolutionary adaptation, the goal is to connect to a social group and reduce risk.
We are living in an increasingly mobile society. "Till-death-do-us-part" marriages are becoming rare. Many of us can no longer depend on our extended families for social support. Where do we turn to fill in the gaps? Our friends. For busy professional women, work is often where our friends are. Workplace friendships can provide big benefits as well as pose some serious pitfalls. This section will teach you what you need to know to ensure that a business friendship doesn't damage your career.
Sometimes, we meet friends at work, befriending the boss, a coworker, or an employee. Sometimes, we hire our friends into our workplaces. Sometimes, we go into business with our friends. In any event, adding a layer of friendship onto a business relationship can bring both benefits and the potential for disaster.
Work friends are easily accessible. Together for long periods of time, we typically share interests, experiences, a professional identity, and a common history. These friends can listen, console, advise, teach, share, and support. So, a workplace friendship can often provide you with an improved understanding of your world and yourself. Whether the friend is one you hired into the workplace or one you met at work, friendship often brings team strength, more efficient decision making, and effective conflict management. For women, especially, friendship can create a supportive business culture that discourages political behavior and promotes candor, self-disclosure, communication, tolerance, and cooperation. Friendship may bring involvement and commitment to the workplace that would not exist otherwise. Ultimately, good working relationships and good friendships are characterized by shared goals and close contact. So, friendship, which is typically associated with similarity of values, is a great foundation for workplace connections and joint decision making.
On the other hand, a workplace friendship can be detrimental to a career. Intimate sharing and excessive disclosure to a coworker can come back and bite you on the nose. Likewise, making decisions based on friendship—ignoring what is best for the business or your career—can be professional suicide. A soured friendship can spill over into the workplace, causing disruption and distraction. Friends who are very involved with one another inside and outside of work often have a more trusting relationship. However, this close involvement may also invite severe interpersonal conflict that brings the potential to provoke an ugly end to the relationship. The bonds of friendship can serve to keep you or your friend connected to your business, even if this means passing up more attractive opportunities.
Ultimately, workplace friends may be what is best about work and what is worst about work. Be careful. As close as you two may be, when push comes to shove, if your friend has to choose between the hand that feeds her (the boss) and you, she is likely to throw you under the bus.