You spend eight hours a day with your coworkers, more than you do with nearly everyone else in your life. It's only natural to grow close to a colleague or two — even if you work remotely and have never met your team face-to-face. But in the workplace, where people often jockey for position and carefully protect their standing, how close should you let those friendships get?
To help you navigate close bonds at work, we spoke with management expert George Stern. (You may have seen his viral Instagram posts about horrible texts managers send to employees.) His bottom line: If a friendship affects your work or causes others to wonder about favoritism, it's time to cool it on the chatty lunches and snarky Slacks.
KCM: What are some potential downsides of getting really close (platonically, of course) to a coworker?
George Stern: I don't think close friendships at work are inherently a problem. In fact, they can make work much more enjoyable and can create real trust and support. The downside is that work is still a place where people compete for opportunities, receive feedback, make decisions, and sometimes handle confidential information. The closer the friendship gets, the easier it is for those lines to blur. You might start sharing things you probably shouldn't. You can become less willing to give someone candid feedback. You can take their side in a conflict before you really understand what happened. Or other people can start assuming favoritism even when none exists.
And there's another practical risk: Unlike most friendships, your work friendship exists within an organization that can change it overnight. One of you gets promoted. One gets laid off. One gets a raise; the other doesn't. One ends up competing with the other for the same job. Those things can put pressure on a friendship very quickly.
Does that answer change if there's a power differential between the employees?
The greater the power differential, the more careful I think both people need to be, even if one person isn't technically the other's manager. Someone higher in the organization may still have influence over promotions, compensation, staffing decisions, reputation, or access to senior leaders. That means what feels like an ordinary friendship to the more senior person can look very different to everyone else.
The biggest issue is often not actual favoritism but perceived favoritism. If one employee has a close personal relationship with someone several levels above them, coworkers may reasonably wonder whether that person is getting information, opportunities, or access they don't.
What's a sign that a work friendship has become counterproductive?
One good test is: Would I make the same professional decision if this person weren't my friend? If you protect them from feedback, share information with them that other employees wouldn't have, consistently take their side, give them disproportionate access, or avoid necessary accountability because you don't want to damage the friendship, you've probably crossed a line.
Another warning sign is when the friendship starts creating an "us versus them" dynamic. If two coworkers constantly debrief privately about everyone else, gossip about colleagues, or form their own little alliance within the team, that can become corrosive very quickly.
Have you ever seen a work friendship go south or cost someone something?
I've seen this broader pattern many times in management: two people become close as peers, then the relationship shifts when one gets promoted or gains more authority. What used to feel like normal venting or candid conversation can suddenly become inappropriate. The person who wasn't promoted may still expect the same access and loyalty, while the new manager now has responsibilities to the whole team.
I've also seen situations where a manager's friendship with one employee damages their credibility with everyone else, even if the manager believes they're still being perfectly fair. Once the rest of the team believes there's an inner circle, it becomes much harder to convince people that decisions are made objectively.
Have you ever had a close friendship at work? How did it turn out?
Not in the past decade-plus. Since moving into CEO roles, I tend toward the end of the spectrum when it comes to setting strong professional boundaries. I work hard to build warm relationships with my colleagues, to get to know them and their families, and care about them as people, not just as employees. But I don't let it become a close friendship. I don't think every leader needs to draw the line where I do, but it's what works best for me.
Where should people draw the friendship line at the office?
I wouldn't advise people to avoid making friends at work. We spend an enormous amount of our lives working, and telling people to keep everyone at arm's length seems both unrealistic and unnecessarily bleak. Instead, I'd draw the line around behavior rather than closeness. Be friends. Get lunch. Know what's happening in each other's lives. Support each other. But don't let the friendship buy access, information, protection from accountability, or special treatment.
