Any relationship can be a struggle, but having a good rapport with a boss is important. Nobody wants to work for someone that acts like they don’t like them, but can they be friends? The old saying can be true, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

Being friends with a coworker can strain the workplace, but being friends with a boss can be ruinous for the worker. Bosses shouldn’t know everything about their employees personally; it isn’t good practice because they can know too much and take it to work. Even though they can be a friend, bosses are better left out of the party.

What if the worker does something the boss is offended by? Like, what if they drink a lot? The boss is going to think every time the person misses work that they’ve drunk too much and are hung-over. And likewise, the worker might expect the boss to cut them extra slack because they are friends. Neither situation works. And if it’s the boss who drinks too much, the employee will lose respect for them and it’ll show on the job. Not to mention others finding out about it and all of them losing respect for the boss, too.

If a boss is too indifferent, the employees will be left to interpret the silence themselves, and they won’t feel liked or appreciated for their work. They may feel disliked and work performance would then suffer from it, and gossip may well be started, too. So a boss shouldn’t be too distant, he should be able to get along with every person there.

The boss can’t get too close, but they shouldn’t stay at a distance, either. The right place is in the middle, where the boss can talk and joke with all the employees, being as human as they are, without overstepping boundaries of either extreme or learning too much about the people that work for them.