{"id":2934,"date":"2017-01-14T19:15:06","date_gmt":"2017-01-14T19:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/deanjohnson\/?p=2934"},"modified":"2017-01-14T19:15:06","modified_gmt":"2017-01-14T19:15:06","slug":"leadership-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/mericjohnson\/2017\/01\/leadership-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Work Friendships be a Management Objective?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strengthening relationships with friends is a popular New Year\u2019s Resolution.\u00a0It comes as little surprise \u2013 research has documented<\/a> a strong link between quality friendships<\/a> and happiness, well-being<\/a>, and even health<\/a>.\u00a0But surprisingly, friendships at work<\/a> appear to be on the decline.\u00a0A few hip corporate cultures encourage workers to authentically blend the personal and professional.\u00a0For example, inside Facebook, colleagues use the platform for daily work collaboration, placing their latest athletic achievement or party pictures alongside project objectives and team management.\u00a0But even in those environments, younger workers often maintain private Snapchat accounts for their true friends, where pictures and videos are privately shared with a select few, keeping the truly personal<\/em> personal. Most professionals outside of the Tech sector would never consider inviting their colleagues into their Facebook lives, never mind their inner circle of true friends.<\/p>\n

So why have work friends vanished<\/a>?\u00a0Some point to the decline of long-term employment, eroding the time needed to develop work friends or possibly making that time investment in work friends more risky.\u00a0Others note the rise of communication technologies that make it easier to maintain old and physically distant friendships.\u00a0Sometimes true friendship and professionalism sometimes appear at odds with each other, even if many see the importance of building networks and even \u201cbonding\u201d with workmakes.<\/p>\n

Whatever the reason, organizations often place employee interest in friendship in the same category as employee hobbies or religious involvement \u2013 something to accommodate but not actively promote. Others invest in team development, providing opportunities for teams to socialize and bond, but few employees would view those experiences as opportunities to develop true friendships.\u00a0So should managers view work friendships \u2013 both for themselves and their subordinates\u00a0\u2013 as business objectives?<\/p>\n

In a recent interview<\/a>, Derek Young<\/a> of Fidelity Institutional highlights friendship as an important element of his five management principles.\u00a0He arg\"dy\"<\/a>ues that workplace friendship has business value and suggests that building friendships among team members is the ultimate measure of a successful manager. [click here for entire post and video<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Leadership Notes<\/strong> is a blog and video series on leadership.\u00a0 Through interviews with leaders from both the private and public sector, Johnson examines key leadership issues like empowerment, team development, and cultural dexterity.\u00a0 The blog also addresses topics such as learning from failure, the importance of friendship, and the role leaders play in developing organizational culture.<\/p>\n

You can access the entire library of entries on LinkedIn<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Recent Entries:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stay in touch! A leadership lesson for the holidays<\/strong>
\nCarl Carande, Vice Chair of KPMG Advisory Services<\/a><\/h4>\n

Engaged Leadership
\n<\/a><\/strong>Lieutenant General Ronald L. Bailey, US Marine Corp.<\/a><\/h4>\n

Culture remix \u2013 realizing the best of both worlds<\/a><\/strong>
\nDoug Parker, CEO of American Airlines<\/a><\/h4>\n

……<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Library of entries on LinkedIn<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strengthening relationships with friends is a popular New Year\u2019s Resolution.\u00a0It comes as little surprise \u2013 research has documented a strong link between quality friendships and happiness, well-being, and even health.\u00a0But surprisingly, friendships at work appear to be on the decline.\u00a0A few hip corporate cultures encourage workers to authentically blend the personal and professional.\u00a0For example, inside…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9914,"featured_media":2944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/mericjohnson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/mericjohnson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/mericjohnson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/mericjohnson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9914"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/mericjohnson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/mericjohnson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/mericjohnson\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/mericjohnson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/mericjohnson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/mericjohnson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}