Leadership and Friendship

In this interview with Kara List, on the Culture Keepers Podcast, I had the chance to discusses the importance of friendships in the workplace, drawing on insights from my time at Hydro One and findings from Gallup’s employee engagement surveys.?

Gallup’s research, which studied employee engagement across industries, highlighted the importance of having a “best friend” at work as a key predictor of positive workplace outcomes such as improved safety, productivity, and lower absenteeism.?

When employees have close friendships at work, they are more likely to watch out for one another, which can directly impact safety in high-risk environments and, more broadly, mental and emotional well-being in other workplaces.

Fostering a work environment where friendships can naturally develop is crucial, but stay away from forced social activities, which may feel inauthentic. Instead I recommend creating informal opportunities for employees to connect organically, such as non-work-related team meetings or casual outings, where people can interact as individuals rather than colleagues. This approach allows for genuine human connections, encouraging empathy and trust among team members.

We also discussed the boundaries leaders must maintain between being friendly and becoming friends with their team members. Leaders, while fostering a warm and connected environment, still need to maintain a degree of professional separation.

Listen to the full Culture Keepers Podcast episode here:

Here is the full transcript of our interview.

Kara

So today on the culture keepers podcast, I have a guest Matthew Devine with me. He is an executive coach, leadership trainer based in Toronto, Canada, and prior to becoming a coach, he worked 18 years in leadership roles in human resources, change management and training. Currently, he is supporting senior leaders and startup CEOs, helping them rediscover their voice, their direction and their confidence. And today I have Matthew on to discuss friendships in the workplace. So let's jump into it.?

Hi, Matthew, thanks so much for being on the culture keepers podcast. Hey, glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me to come on your show. Yeah, Matthew, so I have to say, I tell you, you're my first international interview.

Matthew

I'm touched. I know are you honoured I was your first I am great. Welcome to Canada!

Kara

It looks like a beautiful day outside your window in Toronto.?

Matthew

I'm right downtown Toronto. So yeah, it's gorgeous day today.?

Kara

That's awesome. Well, so glad you're here. I'm so excited for my audience to get to hear more from you and your experience. And I have to admit that this whole conversation started because of LinkedIn, and this is not a LinkedIn promo. LinkedIn isn't paying us anything.?

But this is just to say that it is amazing when you put yourself out there and you just connect with people. You hear stories and this podcast conversation started because Matthew shared a story with me on LinkedIn, and I was so curious. And the more he told me, the more I thought, I have to get this. I have to share this, because this is just so good, and it fits what we talk about here on the culture keepers podcast.?

And so I'm going to let Matthew jump into that story, and just to frame it, he was sharing with me about this Gallup survey that was done at his former workplace about friendship in the workplace. And so I'm just going to frame it like that, and I'm going to let you dive right in, Matthew and tell us more about it.?

Matthew

Absolutely, I'll give some context, and then we'll get into the friendship piece of it. So Gallup is research organization. They do studies, they do surveys, but they do a lot of work with organizations, helping them with organizational effectiveness and similar kinds of projects. And they've worked with three and a half million people around the world and hundreds of 1000s of teams, just a huge amount of work, and they started to realize, through all those studies and all that work, that there were patterns in engagement in the workplace.?

What are the things that make for an engaged team? And when you have an engaged team, how does that impact performance on the job, business metrics, sales, productivity, all the kinds of things you can think about. How does a team's engagement affect those kinds of metrics? So that's a starting point with Gallup.?

They came up with an engagement survey that they now offer as a product to companies to purchase, where they will come in and provide this basically an employee survey for the organization based on 12 key metrics. And this is where the friendship comes in, 12 different factors that contribute to employee engagement. And one of the factors is, I have a best friend at work.

I have a best friend at work. I'm going to pause and park that for a second. We'll get back to in a moment, because I also want to talk about the company I was in at the time, because this is an important context.?

So I was working at Hydro One which is a the province's largest electrical utility, Canada's largest electrical utility. They basically provide electrical power throughout the entire province, from where it's generated to where it's needed, 1000s of employees.

And as you can imagine, with any large any utility for that many but any large utility you're dealing with construction, you're dealing with working with high voltage electrical systems. So there are hazards in the workplace. There are places where people can get injured. And so as a culture, Hydro One has a very safety focused culture, and they want to make sure people are doing the work right. They want to make sure they're doing it safely. And so that's an aspect of how the company does its work.

Now they decided to engage Gallup to do their employee survey. And when you do employee service, the idea is to give leadership an idea of how are the employees doing, what are they feeling, what are they thinking, what are the major issues?

But the opportunity with Gallup is that it gives something back to the management team that they can now action on. They can use that feedback to do something different, and so they engaged Gallup to do the survey. We sent out the 1000s of surveys. Some were delivered in paper, some of them were done electronically, because we have field staff out in the remote areas of the province, they don't always have access to emails.? Anyway, they brought in all the results. They tabulated the results.?

What was fascinating is that we then married the Gallup data with the employee and organizational data. We have metrics on safety, incidents, lost time, injury, absenteeism, any kind of HR metric that you can imagine, and we were able to correlate this data together, because we know who who signed the work the survey, and who were the people who might have been injured on the job, we're able to link all that up.?

And this brings us to the question “I have a best friend at work”.

And I love this question. I love this question because it goes in a place that you don't expect it to in that you when you read the question, you're like, Okay, I have a friend at work. How does that work? I've done it. I don't understand why that's important.

It's important because it correlates with safety.?

It correlates directly with safety, and that we found, and it's backed up in Gallup's rest of their data, but we found it directly, without our own metrics, that when you have an engaged team, and when people feel like they have a best friend at work, they're less likely to get injured, they're more likely to show up on the job, more likely to work safely, they're going to take less time off, they're going to be more productive.?

And it comes down to this idea that when you have a best friend, you've got somebody you trust.?

You've got somebody who's watching your back.?

So if you're doing hazardous work, your buddy over there is like, woah, woah, woah. They're going to be paying attention because they like you, they trust you. They want you to do okay. You matter to them, and they matter to you. You're going to be watching their back. And so as a result, you know, people don't get hurt, they go home safely.?

And it all comes down to this question of, I have a best friend at work? And the wording was also very particular. Gallup studied this to death. They looked at different ways of asking these questions, do you have a friend at work? Are you friendly with your colleagues? You know? Do you like your coworkers? There's all sorts of permutations of how they ask this question, but the data didn't work out right, like you couldn't. It wasn't predictive enough until you asked the question, I have a best friend at work. When you asked it, in that way, it became predictive of better safety metrics, better productivity, lower absenteeism, on and on and on and on, yeah.?

Kara

And, I mean, when you think about it, it makes sense, you know, but it's just to have data like that is powerful to actually have it on paper. So you know, you're talking about Hydro One and the safety risks, but I would, I would say that there are people in organizations and companies across the entire world who aren't in a working environment that might be hazardous to their physical health, but they definitely feel like it's hazardous to their emotional and mental health.?

And so I think that,I’m guessing that that data like immediately transfers right into I feel safe at work, even if I'm not like climbing telephone poles.?

Matthew

Yeah, yeah. Hydro One has an example. Is an example where there is a hazard in the workplace for a lot of the field staff and engineers. But you're right. If you're working at a bank, for instance, you know you're not going to be exposed to hazardous materials or anything like that, but it's 100% still applicable.?

If you have that close connection, these are the people that are going to watch out for you. They're going to be the ones who you know care for you when you encounter a stressful situation, or you're going to help them when they encounter something that's difficult. Same, same lesson, same connection applies.?

Kara

Yeah, and I have a couple work besties from my work history, people that I met on the job who became like, super close to me, like, really, really close. And part of the reason is because we met at a time where we were in a working environment where there was, like, conflict or restructure or or things were hard, change was happening, and so we were new, so we connected, you know, we like linked arms, and we're like, well, we're new, so we're gonna figure it out together. We're gonna stick by each other's side and the conditions of, you know, the turbulence, really, at work, were what provided for our friendship to really flourish.?

And I just think back to those times, and I think, man, I would have felt so alone, and I maybe even would have quit, you know, if I had had someone who was like, we're doing this together. We don't know what's gonna happen, but we're doing this together. And now those friendships have lasted far beyond our employment in these different ways. Organization. So like, I get it to my core, and I'm sure there are lots of people listening who also do.?

If we can say we know that to be true, then as leaders. So my audience are leaders. How can, how can leaders work to create environments where this kind of friendship can happen, because we know that friendship can't be forced. And sometimes we try to do these, you know, like tacky, like mandatory pizza parties, like you're gonna come and you're gonna have fun. You know, it's like a parent at Thanksgiving, like you're gonna have fun, you're gonna love this time with your extended family. So how do we as leaders really create cultures and environments where friendship can happen without it being this forced, awkward, awful thing.

Matthew

Yeah, I don't advocate for forced, awkward things. It's fine if you're doing events like, there will be, you know, employees birthday you want to celebrate, for instance, you know, like, okay, everyone's gonna come together and have a piece of cake, great. But yeah, like, forced fun is not fun. And so if you're if you're doing that, then there's opportunities to do something different. I would start with, you're right.?

First off, I want to say, you write about, you can't force this. You can't make your employees suddenly become besties. You know that if that happens, great, it might not happen, but that's okay. You want to create an environment where they feel they can start connecting and getting along with each other, and it starts with just allowing informal connections.?

So I'll give you contrast. So I worked at one company I worked with. It was during the pandemic, and we were all online. Everyone was remote, and we were all dialled in. And so the environment we were in was meeting after meeting after meeting, but we never really had time to connect with everyone. Every meeting was work related. And so we just didn't have that organic ways of just bumping into somebody and being like, hey, like, you know, how's your day going? Like, we didn't have those opportunities.?

What my manager did at that point, and it's something I advocate myself for the teams that I I run, is having creating a space where people can engage, you know, in a unstructured, non work format. She actually had a standing meeting in the calendar for Friday afternoons where we just showed up. There was no work to be discussed. It was an unstructured and it was often left to us, the employees, to decide, what were we wanting to talk about? What did we want to do??

And over time, over the months that we and, you know, I was there for a couple years. Over the couple years that we were there, it evolved as we had new people. We told stories about our past. We told we describe ideal vacations that we might want to go on. We one day we had to create, like these collages that we brought into pictures of stuff that we've done, just as a way of sharing, just as a way of connecting as people and creating a way of seeing each other as just other fellow humans, and being able to laugh, being able to share stories that we weren't getting otherwise.?

Now in a normal, non remote environment, I would encourage managers try to do the same thing, and this can look like, hey, you know, Tuesday afternoon, let's all just go away for coffee, you know. Let's just step away from our desks. Let's just go grab a coffee. Or maybe it's, you know, I've done things in the past where it's a beautiful, sunny day, spring day. Hey everyone you know, time for ice cream. I'll treat, you know. And just step away from the work, and allow a space that people can just start to mix in a way that's not forced, in a way that you're not controlling. You're just as a group of people going and doing something. Maybe it's a you. Everyone just goes out for lunch together, maybe in the cafeteria, but allowing these unstructured moments and even in meetings, like your one on one meetings, your team meetings, not that it should, you know, be friendly and funny and all the time, because even works with you, you've got a work program to do.?

But at the same time allow openness to for there to be other things. You as the manager, can come in with a story and be like, Oh my God. You know, on the way to work, I saw this crazy thing on the street, and it was this, this, this and this, and then these things happen like crazy, right? And just allow sort of moments of levity and unstructured things, so that people aren't coming in thinking, Okay, it's always gonna be work, and we gotta be on all the time that there's opportunities for and that you as a manager, are doing this deliberately. You're creating space for these more relaxed, unstructured moments to happen.?

Those are the kinds of things that you can do to start helping create that, even if, when it comes to assigning works, thinking about, okay, you. How do I partner these people together to work on projects? How do I pair them up? Maybe I look at pairing different people up and seeing how different people work together, but to give those people an opportunity to talk to one another if they haven't had an opportunity to do so. So those are kinds of things that I would recommend.?

Kara

Yeah, I think that's great. And I think you hit it with you know, we can't, we can't show empathy. We should try, but it's easier to show empathy in a workplace environment when we can connect to that, to people personally, right? When, like, they tell a story, and you think, like, I resonate with that story, like, oh, we maybe are more alike than I realized.?

And so even if it's like, you know, close friendship takes time, takes, you know, this trust, equity that we talked about, that is built, that is earned over time, but those little connections are the way you do it. It's, and I think that's an encouragement to leaders, is if you focus just like that 1% like atomic habits. You know, James clear talks about just improving the 1% like, what's the 1% growth in opportunity for these unstructured conversations to happen if they're not naturally happening in your workplace and over time, like you said, even the boss coming in and modelling right, like telling a story for the sake of sharing their life and saying like, that's okay to do here. You know, I'm not forcing you to, but I'm willing to lead by saying I want to share something personal from my drive to work this morning.?

Then it's those little like micro connections that, over time, help us to see each other as being on the same team instead of working apart from each other. And I just think that that is the natural tendency in the cultures the workplace cultures we have today is, is it takes it's it takes a lot of work to for us to believe that we are on the same team, but it just takes one moment for us to be convinced that we're not, you know, like one moment and it's like, oh, we're like, we're in competition, or I don't see eye to eye, and it just one moment things can change. So I think it's just that, like, you know, it could be three steps forward, one step back. Three steps forward, one step back.?

But that continued pursuit of saying, you know, I'm going to care for the culture by just allowing space and modelling this organic time for people to just connect as humans. And you think you said that so well.?

So as leaders, we struggle because there is a healthy separation, right? There is this healthy separation between friendship laterally, right? Like this, this colleague friendship and this downward friendship, you know, like this idea of, how do I be friends with my employees? You know that aren't like necessarily my equaled colleagues. How do I be friends with them in a way where it's still healthy on all sides? Because no one wants a boss who comes into their office every morning and it's like, can we talk? I had a bad day yesterday, you know, like they need you to be their boss. Like they need you to be okay, and you don't have as the leader. You don't reserve the rights to that in your workplace.?

And I too often compare leadership to parenting, and I don't mean to, it's just how it is sometimes. And I think, like our kids, my kids don't have to, like, earn the right for me to be the parent, like it is my job, like it is my job. And there are things about being a parent that means, like, I can't depend on them emotionally for things, right? That's not their job. Like their job is to be the kid and my job is to be the parent, the adult. So again, we're not saying that we're a workplace family. We're not saying that our employees are our children, not saying that.?

But how do we build relationship while still keeping those healthy professional boundaries??

Matthew

Yeah, I think that that’s a critical question. I see it in two ways. There is the idea of being friendly, and then there's the idea of being friends.

As leaders. We can be friendly with our team. We can have respectful conversations. We can joke with them. We can, you know, share stories with each other. That's fine. We can have those kinds of friendly interactions with our employees. But to your point, and I agree with the idea we're not, we're not their parents. You know, that's a very different role.?

At the same time, we have a responsibility as leaders to provide structure. Because we have as leaders, we're at a different level. We can see more of what's coming. We can see what's possible, what are the real risks, and what are the resources that we can use to overcome things, whereas an employee doesn't see that, and as a result, an employee is in a position where it's more uncertain as to what the future is, and when things come up, and you know, stress happens. Their look, they don't, they don't see what we see and our response.

Ability as leaders is to provide that clarity, to provide that stability, to say, It's okay, yeah, I hear you. You’re in a place of stress, it's okay. We're going to be fine. To bring that kind of stability, calmness, gravitas to the moments.?

Unfortunately, that means that we cannot seek our employees out to be the emotional support for us as a as a friend, you're sharing that emotional support where they are telling you their fears and being vulnerable, and you're telling them your fears and you're you're being vulnerable. That kind of exchange can't happen because it undermines that trust in you as the leader to have things under control.?

And it doesn't mean you're serious all the time. You can be friendly, you can have those fun interactions and have that but when push comes to shove, you're going to be the emotional, strong person in that dynamic. Now, as a leader, you need to find that elsewhere, right? You need to, you know, make friends with your peer managers. You need to, you know, have friends outside of work. If you need a therapist, you need a coach. Engage those people. Get the build your network of support, so that you can show up in the workplace with that emotional strength, so that you don't have to rely on your employees for that.?

Yeah, so it creates this place where you can be friendly, but having a true friendship is not going to happen.?

Now I want, I want to put a caveat, a little star on the side of this, in that over time, and I've had the opportunity, I worked at Hydro One for many years. Over time, you do build up, you know, close connections with colleagues, if you've worked for them for years and years and years, and you've, you know, gone to their house, you've seen their kids, you've played with their dog, they've met your spouse, you know, like, over time, it a friendship does develop. There's more to it than that, but there's always, there's always that respect of being like, Okay, this person's still the boss. I'm still the employee, but we can share a deeper connection even though I'm not truly friends.?

Kara

Yeah, I think about like, you can genuinely enjoy people while still being discerning about what you tell them. And I think like, yeah, we over we maybe overthink it in the workplace, because we do this all the time in in the real world, right outside of work, like we're we enjoy the company of friends, but there are those certain friends who you're like, Oh, I'm not telling them anything you know, like I am. And maybe over time, that changes.?

But again, that's because there's this organic, like, step by step connection building that's happening that brings you to a point where you feel like you can trust people. So I think the discernment is the key. The key point of saying, I want to enjoy my employees, like as people, without having to need them, you know, like need them for me.

Matthew

Here's a challenge that I know a lot of leaders get into when they're first promoted is that they've got friends already. They've got their buddies. They’ve got their mates, they you know, they've got their close friends. And then they get promoted to be the boss. And now they have to deal with the situation of, how do they navigate a friendship that was well established, but now you have to have that emotional separation.

That is a really difficult thing for a lot of new leaders, especially once you've been promoted and you're promoting up, then it's a little bit different.?

But that that first step is really difficult. And if, if any of your audience are in that situation, there's several things you can do. One is sit down with a person, and when you've been promoted and have an open conversation to say this, this friendship has to it will change. You know, let's talk about it. How do we feel about it??

Because you're going to be in a role where you need to performance manage that person. You're going to need to say things that they may not want to hear, they may not like to hear, and you need to have that as an open conversation. Say, you know, if I need to tell you, you need to work harder. How do you feel about that? How do you want me to have that conversation with you? How do we want to work this through so that we can still work together in a friendly fashion, that we can still honour the friendship, but at the same time, get the work done and do it respectfully.?

But the other piece to that is that you have to make that change, because otherwise everyone else on the team is going to be looking at the two of you and saying, wait a minute. They have too close of a relationship that friend has. Has too much access to the boss. What's going on? Are they getting, you know, secret information behind the doors? Are they getting special bonuses or perks, or, you know, are they getting better work assignments because they're friends with the boss? Like those are the kinds of things you want to avoid, because that can undermine engagement on the team, undermine your trust with everybody else. So it's a relationship that has to change, and you just have to face it straight on.?

Kara

Yeah, I think that's really great. I think just that, that initial transparency with that person, right, is, like you said, is just so good. I think that's so helpful for them and for the rest of the team. So an argument can be made. I think we kind of hit on this about, you know, if you're too close to the person, right? If you're if you're as a leader, if you're too close to your employees, then when conflict comes, when you were like you were saying, when you have to address the performance, it makes it hard, right, and sometimes impossible.?

And that's why we're getting away from the language in the workplace, like we're just a family, right? Because you don't fire your brother, you know, but you have to fire employees, you know, and so just kind of moving away from that language. And so how would you recommend continuing to build relationships well so that we have the relational foundation to be able to handle conflict well and give feedback, because nothing is worse than a boss that you feel like doesn't know you or doesn't care for you, giving you feedback and critique, right? Even though, as employees, we should just take you know like, this is, this is a workplace relationship, but still, it's hard, right?

But when we know someone cares for us, then we know that the the feedback they're giving us and the help in conflict is for our good, like it's, it's to help us grow, is to help us see what we can't see.?

So how do we invest in those relationships? Like, specifically, like, how can we do that? So when those conflict moments come, we still have that relational equity to be able to speak into it and know for them, to know that we care for them. With, with so that discernment in mind, I kind of got there in the long way around.?

Matthew

Yeah, no, I got it. I got it. I think it's important really, because when we look at something like performance management, we can't see it as being, you know, we're just doing, we're doing work. And now you get feedback keto, and then it's like, okay, now you've, you know, like you're providing it all at once, and that's where you have things break down, where people feel like, Oh my God, I didn't realize things were going there's lack of trust, and they don't hear what you have to say.

To make that effective, providing feedback has to be done all the time, and it has to be supportive. It's not always. Here are the things you're doing badly. Here are the things you have you've made mistakes on. It's a Wow. That was great job. In fact, I like these specific things. It's providing support, providing that kind of input over time.?

And what that does is it creates a sense of trust. The employee will then see you as being somebody who is engaged with them, because they are getting, you know, recognition for things they are doing well. They're getting encouragement. They're getting minor adjustments along the way, not big, you know, negative feedback, but just like, hey, just to tweak a little bit on this, and you're great, you know, like, little stuff along the way to say, hey, we're just, we're working on making you the best you can be, so that when you get to that annual performance review, or when something happens where there's a big upset or there's a big change, or you need to fire somebody, you've already established that relationship, so you can have that conversation.?

So that's part one, is just make sure you're engaging your employees continually, good stuff, bad stuff, but always with the point of where I, as your boss, am here to support you, and I'm I'm actively doing that so they can see it.

Kara

Yeah, I love, sorry. I'm gonna add one little note. I love the idea of, like, as long as you're still hired, as long as you're still employed, here I am for you, right? Like, I'm not working. I'm not trying to catch you doing something wrong, like, if I'm still employing you, then I want you to win.?

And so that constant, like championing of like this feedback, that it's consistent, like you were saying, The Good, the hard, the bad, that's consistent all the time, so no one's surprised at an annual performance review. It is reminding them that I want you here like we want you here, and that does something for belonging mattering, sorry. Okay, your next point.

Matthew

Yeah. The next thing is what I call some situational leadership, but basically adapting yourself depending on what the needs of the situation are and what the needs of the employee are, and this includes modulating your voice and changing your voice and changing a behaviour.?

So for example, I'll give you an example. I had a boss that used to do this extremely well, that when it was a serious time, she commanded the room. She her voice was strong. It was clear. It was solid, and there was no questioning who the boss was. She brought that to the table, but she was so good at adjusting it that I have a different example where she came in after a weekend, after seeing some movie, and she was dancing and singing this song from the movie. I forget what the movie was, but it was bananas. And we're all like, just looking at this and thinking it was the most hilarious stupid thing in the world. But she was able to play the line so that, you know, she could come in and create this experience of just silly fun, and that we could laugh at her, and it was all good fun and cheer, and that she could adjust her behaviour all the way from serious, I'm in charge, to just fun. We're all just having a great time.?

And she used that all the time throughout the day, it would go up, down, back forth, depending on what was needed in that situation. And as a result, what we learned is that, you know, she would basically communicate to us, is this a serious moment? And we'd be like, Okay, we get it. The boss is serious right now. We understand. So it never came as a surprise, because we were already familiar with her expression and as a leader, one of the opportunities and the skill that I encourage all of you to practice is playing that line.?

How do you, you know, get to a more serious place? How do you get to a more curious place and be engaged? How do you get to a more emotional place where you are responsive and to the feelings of the people in the team? And how do you get to the fun place? And all the other dimensions that might be required, but learn how to move into those spaces, not only in response to what you're seeing.

But also as a way of creating those experiences you want your team in being curious and asking questions. Get curious, lean in and ask questions, and, you know, point out things, you know, like create that energy so that your team follows you with what falls with you.?

And so when you do that, you can create a trust, because they will see you no matter how you're expressing. They understand what this moment is.?

Kara

And I think that is so good.?

And you know, I think that a lot of bosses live at a high stakes level, too much, right? Like everything feels high stakes, and especially feeling the pressure to be the boss. It's like that, that intensity has to be there all the time, right? But then all of a sudden, that intensity doesn't mean anything, right? It's like that. It's like the boy you cried wolf, you know, it's like, if someone is coming at us with, like, these high stakes, high emotions all the time, you start to disregard it, because you're like, oh, it could be like, they, they got a paper cut, you know, like they and you don't have

Matthew

You don't have any range, because no range really goes bad. You don't have the ability to take it to the next serious level, because you're already at that, you know? So this gives you range to deal with any manner of experience. So, but you can be serious. It doesn't mean that you have to be funny or anything like that. You can still be serious. You can still be, you know, we're, we're here to focus on the work, and I'm just kind of, I'm a serious person. That's okay, but you need to learn how to play it so people know that. Okay, this is he's serious, but this is sort of normal level, serious, but now he is really serious, and he is really engaged. You know, like to bring your voice to the next level, but that's not where you start. You're not starting at 11. You're starting a seven for instance, right??

Kara

And you reserve that 11 for when you really need it?

Matthew

Exactly, and it's done intentionally. You're not doing it all the time. You're doing it for a reason.?

Kara

Yeah, and I think that right there is exactly what you said. It like circles back to the people who work for those kinds of leaders, feel safe because they know it, because they know exactly what's at play. Like, nothing is worse than not knowing. Like, are we in a good spot? Are we in a bad spot? It's like, when you get no feedback, right? People would rather have, like, negative feedback than no feedback, because no feedback just leads you to all this fear. Like, I don't what are they thinking? Because I don't know. And same with your leadership style, right? Like, if you're not intentional, then people just don't know, and not knowing leads to fear, and fear leads to fear, erodes trust.?

And so I think that full circle moment of like, what's the ultimate goal? Like, the ultimate goal of of us, wanting people to have friends at work, is so that they can trust each other, so that together, that connection means we are a stronger team, and we can, like, we can accomplish our mission, and and we can enjoy doing it, you know, together.?

And then likewise, like in my leadership, what is my goal of how, how I present myself as a leader? It's so that my people can trust me, so that we can build the right relationship, so that they, at the end of the day, feel safe.?

Matthew

And when your employees trust you, in a way, it's not a friendship, but they are your employees. Will, you know, step up to support you if they feel like you're there to support them, that they will, you know, back you up. They will provide the information. They will fight on your side if that's necessary. But that comes with building that trust.?

Kara

Yeah, and I love the question. Kim Scott at Radical Candor encourages bosses to ask the question, What could I do or stop doing that would make it easier for you to work with me, and for me, I love that question, and I think that you cannot expect an employee to answer that honestly unless you've done this, right? Like, unless you've done this, the question is pointless.

Matthew

Although, although, if you are starting a brand new leadership role, that's a good question to start with, yeah, right, because it allows you to introduce yourself to them and say, I'm open to this feedback. Yes, you know you and I don't know each other, but I'm open to this feedback. I want to be able to work with you and be a great boss for you. What do you need from me? That's a great starting point.?

And to your point, it's also something that you can ask when you've built that trust and when you realize, how do we take this to the next level? How do we get this working even better than it already is??

Kara

Yeah, and I think that, what do I What should I stop doing? You know, like, what am I doing? That that I should stop doing? That's the one that, like, if you, if you really want to build trust and you're willing to ask that question, then you have to be willing to receive the answer. And it's, it's that pattern of, like, humility and receiving and asking for the feedback of, how can I change that continues to build this, like, safety net of, okay, yeah, like we're here for each other and and whenever I've been in situations where I feel like there's been a riff, like, you know, like this break and like, I don't feel like I'm safe here anymore, it's because We've, we've stopped being able to successfully give that hard feedback.?

And so creating that environment is so good, so friendship at work matters. That's what we're saying, right??

Matthew

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, friendships matter, and creating an environment where people can start building those friendships will pay off in the long run, both for the individuals, but also for the organization.?

Kara

Yeah. And I want to say real quick that this is a little bit of a hot take, because for Matthew and I, this feels like kind of like common sense, like, of course, you have friendships in the workplace, but as we all know, there are plenty of workplaces where it's like, we clock in and we clock out. We didn't come here to make friends, we came here to get a paycheque.?

And, you know, I respect those people who feel that way, but I just think as leaders, we can do better.

Like, you know, I think that a lot of people feel that way because they haven't ever experienced what it's like to feel really cared for in the workplace. So why would they look for it if they're only going to be disappointed again or hurt again? So in that, in that questioning of, do my people want this? Do they really want to show up to work and have friends? Am I pushing too much on them?

I want to challenge the leaders to call yourself to a higher standard of personally caring for people, because it always can only help, right? Like it can only build the culture of your organization.?

Matthew

Yeah, yeah. And to get back to our earlier point, we're not forcing anyone to become friends. Totally. Can only happen organically as leaders. It's about creating an environment where people feel they can connect. People feel they can find commonality, and from there, they start building their friendships.

Kara

Yeah, and now me and Matthew are friends.

Matthew

Yeah!

Kara

Here we are.?

Matthew

And who knew? Like, all I did was just comment and be like, Hey, there's this interesting story.

Kara

You shared a story that resonated with me, right? And I wanted to know more, and I just share your stories, right, like someone will resonate with it.?

So Matthew, how can people learn more about you or connect with you if they if they want to learn more??

Matthew

Yeah, best place to get in touch with me is simply on LinkedIn. Look up Matthew Devine and you can send me a direct message. We can go from there,?

Kara

Yeah, and I will include Matthew's links in the show notes.?

So Matthew thank you so much for your time today, for sharing just yourself with us and your leadership experience and knowledge. And I know that my audience has benefited so greatly from it. So thank you so much for being here,?

Matthew

Glad to have be on your show. So thank you very much. This has been wonderful.

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