Should You Be Friends With Your Boss?

According to common advice on how to be professional, you should clearly separate your personal and professional lives, and that means you can’t friends with your boss. While that’s company policy at a lot of workplaces, research has shown a major reason why you might want to go against it.

Oxytocin: The Social Hormone

Oxytocin is a hormone our bodies generate naturally during pleasant social situations, like when you’re out on a date or playing with your kids at the playground. Scientists have discovered oxytocin noticeably reduces risk aversion and fear. In other words, oxytocin makes you more prone to trust someone else.

Since oxytocin and trust are connected, and an absence of trust is often the source of substantial difficulties between bosses and workers, thus it might be a good idea to form a strong social bond with your supervisor. For instance, you might hesitant to talk about unfair treatment, the daily amount of work you have, company processes or other work areas. A lack of trust also might make you reluctant to make legitimate requests from your boss.

Picking up behaviors that encourage the release of oxytocin and making friends with your supervisor can ease or eliminate these issues, putting you in a better position for creativity, productivity and job satisfaction. This doesn’t mean your manager has to be the person you turn to during a personal crisis or someone complain about family issues to, but you may want to start thinking about your boss as a friend rather than a mere acquaintance or someone you have to deal with at work. Doing so can have real, positive implications for your company success, making it possible for both of you to feel better about your relationship and get more done.

A Deeper Connection Through Simple Behaviors

If you already have a good relationship with your boss and you would like reinforce the sense of trust between the two of you, a few simple steps can help to release oxytocin, bringing you closer together. Make an extra effort to be friendly throughout the day. You could also ask if they need help with something if they look like they are having a particularly rough day. It could take a while for these new actions to become routine and feel normal, but the rewards are well worth the effort.

At Career Concepts, we work hard to ensure strong positive relationships between our contract workers and their supervisors. Reach out to our team of experts today!