Opinion is fairly evenly divided in the leadership community about whether it’s a good idea to have a strong bond with one’s team, or whether retaining a distance allows one to make difficult decisions regarding the team.

New research from Washington University in St. Louis reminds us of the perils of getting too close to those you’re expected to lead.  The researchers explored the relationship between over 70 managers and their teams in a Chinese IT company over a few weeks.  During this time they captured the reaction to several hundred one-on-one interactions and work exchanges, each of which were required to last two minutes or more.  So you’re looking at things like meetings, requests and feedback.  Feedback from each encounter was solicited within an hour of the encounter occurring.

Finding the balance

The results suggest that developing a good relationship with your team is certainly important, but that it’s key to strike the right balance so things don’t slip into an excessive level of comfort.

“Rather, in order to receive more responsiveness and more effort in the short term, a manager needs to provide more resources to her or his people—whether that’s empowerment, feedback such as recognition and guidance, or more meaningful tasks,” the authors say.

If workers get too comfortable, this focus can shift from the short-term to the long-term, and whilst this has undoubted benefits, it can also result in a weakening of performance in the short-term.  The data found that workers with the closest bond with their boss had worse performance in the immediate aftermath of each encounter with them.

The study also found that the amount of resources given and taken by both managers and employees fluctuates significantly throughout the day.  The data suggests that the best approach for managers to take is to be generous with resources, whether that’s information, money or other things to create a sense of obligation from their team to respond in the right way.

The notion that we should not become too close to those we hope to lead is perhaps not an especially groundbreaking finding, but perhaps it will nonetheless help to confirm that our own approach is the right one.