One of the decisions every leader makes is how they will walk the line between professional relationships and personal relationships.
Some leaders intentionally blur the lines. They go from being CEO to being your camping buddy easily. Others intentionally keep a clear distance between the two in order to keep things black and white in case things don’t work out.
I lean more on the side of being a leader and a friend with some common sense boundaries in place; but I’ve seen a lot of mixes of boss vs friend that work well.
Whatever your style, there are a few universal leadership principles when it comes to a team member being an employee or a friend.
As a leader, I’ll let you off the hook a little when it comes to attending the wedding of a team member’s child. They may have invited you out of obligation anyway. The rule here is that if you do get an invitation, you rsvp quickly out of consideration of the planner and you send a nice gift from their registry from you and your spouse. Attending depends mostly on how close your relationship is to the team member and it can be a complicated call. In some cases, you definitely need to be there even though your favorite team plays that day. In other cases, a nice gift goes a long way.
But two occasions where it is a really big deal for you to physically be there if at all possible are hospitals and funerals. If you learn that someone that works for you is in the emergency room, you stop whatever else it is you're doing and go.
Your job is not to be the boss. In fact, the waiting room may be full of family members who are emotional and upset. Your job is simply to be in the waiting room with them. How long you stay is a personal decision. It’s the fact that you drove there and hugged the right people during a scary time. They will never forget that you were there.
The second occasion where it is mandatory that you are physically there if at all possible is for the funeral of a team member or of one of their close family members. If the spouse or child of a team member dies, you just need to be there. Even if it means a day back and forth on a plane in order to spend an hour at the service or visitation, this is HUGE for them. They may not know what to say when they see you. You may not either. Your job is simple. It is to physically be there, hug them, and let them know you care for them and their family. Your team member and their family will be blown away that you are personally there. If you are married and your spouse goes with you, it only intensifies your visit and the impact.
Dave Ramsey used to call this the “ministry of presence” and it by far had the deepest impact with the people on the team. Over time, I got to where my words in a funeral welcome line were limited to “I’m so sorry.” In that moment, words just weren’t valuable.
Of course, the smaller your company, the easier this is. If you lead a company of 5,000 people, you may not be able to be there every time. If you can’t, it is your job to make sure someone significant on your leadership team is there. There is nothing worse than a team member losing a child to cancer or a spouse to addiction. The fact that you stopped whatever you were doing and made the effort to be there just to share a hug during that moment will tell them more about how you feel about them than all the company perks and benefits you could ever offer.
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