Managing former peers and friends is genuinely hard, and pretending nothing has changed is the fastest way to make it harder. Lia walks through three moves: name the relationship shift out loud, co-create norms for feedback and hard conversations, and own your authority instead of downplaying it. This episode is especially useful for new managers who got promoted from within their own team.
This episode is part of the Team Culture, Dynamics & Tough Personalities series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“You are changing the relationship, so it has to be talked about.”
“…when we ignore the weird, awkward things that might come up and just move forward, those awkward things come roaring back later.”
“All of these things are critically, critically important to get out on the table while the tensions are low, before stuff goes sideways, so that when it does, you have this foundation laid.”
“…just because you knew someone before doesn’t mean you don’t follow sort of standard protocols of how to interact with an employee.”
Episode highlights
Why managing a former friend is a bigger deal than you think
Promoting a colleague or hiring a friend into your business changes the relationship. Full stop. The way you talk, what you can joke about, how you handle money and accountability, all of it shifts. The mistake most people make is assuming a strong prior relationship means things will sort themselves out. They won’t. When you ignore the awkward, it comes roaring back later.
The story of Sarah and Kelly
Sarah and Kelly were close colleagues. They bonded over shared frustrations, had lunch together, spent time together on weekends. Then Sarah got promoted and became Kelly’s manager. Neither of them acknowledged the change. A few weeks in, Kelly dropped the ball on a big project and brushed it off. Sarah pushed back. Kelly felt disrespected. Sarah felt disrespected. The whole thing exploded because they had no established way to have that kind of conversation. Their strong friendship actually made it worse, because the contrast with the new dynamic was that much sharper.
The one thing that prevents all of this
Have the conversation upfront. Not when things are already tense. Right at the start, once the change has been made. Acknowledge that it is going to feel different, and then actually talk through what the new relationship looks like. Lia is specific about what belongs in that conversation: your management style, their work style, how each of you likes to give and receive feedback, how you want to handle hard conversations, what recognition looks like, and the basics of working hours and career growth.
Get the preferences out in the open
Do not assume you know how someone wants to be managed just because you know them personally. Ask directly. Some people want a heads-up before a hard conversation. Others want it in the moment. Some need positive feedback woven in or they feel picked on. Others want the direct message with no buildup. You will not know until you ask, and the prior relationship makes it even easier to assume wrongly.
Set the professional tone even with people you know
One thing that often gets skipped when managing a friend or family member is treating them with the same professional structure you would give any team member. That means career growth conversations, clear expectations, and consistent follow-through. If it feels like you are randomly assigning tasks when you have time and not investing in their development, they will not stay. The upfront conversation also signals something important: you see them as a professional, you are rooting for their success, and you take their role seriously.
The payoff for doing this early
Have the conversation before anything goes wrong and you will thank yourself when something does. You will already have a foundation. You will know how they want to be approached. And you will have established that the relationship is different now without it having to feel like a betrayal when the first hard moment arrives.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 224: Why certain team members bug you (and how to actually handle it). When a team member drives you up the wall but is technically doing their job, the problem is rarely performance. Lia breaks down three specific archetypes that trigger leaders, explains what each one is actually signaling, and gives you a concrete strategy for each. This episode is especially useful for owners and founders who keep dreading their own one-on-ones.
- Ep 218: How to get out of the friend zone with your team members. Being friendly with your team is great until it erodes accountability and makes hard conversations feel impossible. Lia walks through a three-step reset: name your leadership style out loud, set real boundaries, and commit to having the hard conversations consistently. This episode is especially useful for small-team owners and founders who hired people they already knew personally.
- Ep 144: How to motivate and align your team when everyone feels like they are sprinting a marathon. Motivating a team under tight deadlines comes down to shared context, early visibility, and a culture where people feel seen beyond their project output. Alison Curtis and Janessa Mason, leaders at creative agency Skona, share how they align client services and creative teams through transparent communication, collaborative timeline-setting, and deliberate relationship-building at every level. This episode is especially useful for founders, agency leaders, and anyone managing across departments that can feel like they have competing agendas.
- Ep 141: How to manage former friends without making things weird. Managing former peers and friends is genuinely hard, and pretending nothing has changed is the fastest way to make it harder. Lia walks through three moves: name the relationship shift out loud, co-create norms for feedback and hard conversations, and own your authority instead of downplaying it. This episode is especially useful for new managers who got promoted from within their own team.
Want to go deeper?
The Unstoppable Team. How to build a team that runs without you in the room.
Full transcript (click to expand)
How do we wanna have hard conversations? Do you wanna know that it’s coming? Do you want to, you know, hear it in the moment? Do you wanna think about it a little bit and, and then come back together later? All of these things are critically, critically important to get out on the table while the tensions are low, before stuff goes sideways, so that when it does, you have this foundation laid. Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where I bring a decade of experience working in some of the most influential companies in tech to help you navigate the ins and outs of being a people manager from conflicts to feedback to delegating and more, we will leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it and everything in between.
Doesn’t matter if you’re a new manager looking for some tips or a seasoned manager looking up their game. Everyone is welcome to hang out with Managing Made Simple. Let’s go, let’s go. Welcome back to the show. And today we are gonna talk about how to effectively manage a former friend, and I don’t say former because it goes badly and you’re not friends anymore. I’m saying former more that this is someone that you were friends with before, either as colleagues or personal friends, and now you’re shifting into this role of, you know, supervisor and, and direct report.
And the key here is shift. You are changing the relationship, so it has to be talked about. And this is what we’re gonna talk about today, is, is the importance of having a conversation upfront, talking about the fact that the relationship has changed, what that means and how you wanna move forward. Now, when, when we’re going about managing a former friend, so let’s say you both had, you know, an office or corporate job and you were colleagues and now one of you has become the manager, or you’re an entrepreneur considering hiring a friend or potentially a family member for your business.
This is a, this is actually a big decision. It’s, it’s maybe bigger than you realize because you are going to be changing the relationship. And this means the way that you interact, the way you talk about difficult things. This means money’s involved and they always say you don’t wanna mix friends with money or family with money. But I believe that you actually can when you have deployed the strategy that I will share today in this conversation.
So if you are, let’s say start on the entrepreneur side, if you are considering hiring a friend or family member before you even approach talking logistics, it’s really important to have a conversation with that person. Talk about what is your management style, how do you work, what are each of your work styles, frankly, how do you wanna have hard conversations? How do you wanna talk about feedback? What are the ways that, you know, that raises and, and promotions and all of that works?
The, this is important to talk about because when we’re friends or family members, these are things that do not come up often in conversations we maybe have never had to, you know, give difficult feedback to someone or to be what might feel like confrontational or to course correct. And then when we get in a situation where we have to do that, when someone’s working for us, it’s really, really awkward because we have no foundation established. Same thing if you’re, you’re managing someone you were colleagues with, and when he becomes the manager, probably a lot of your dynamic was kind of talking shit about the manager and like sort of laughing about things and now you’re the manager that got weird real quick because now what’s the dynamic?
And it doesn’t just work itself out because you feel like, oh, it should be fine, let’s just move forward When we ignore the weird, awkward things that might come up and just move forward, those awkward things come roaring back later. Let me share an example. I had a friend named Sarah who was really good friends with a colleague. They got lunch together, got together on the weekends, and they always, they felt like really unified when the boss would say something annoying or asked for something that felt unreasonable and they would always be talking about that and supporting each other.
Then Sarah got promoted and the other person, Kelly, was in the same role, and then Sarah became her manager and both of them thought, Hey, we’re good friends, we can get through this. Let’s just, you know, pretend that thing’s different. And a couple weeks later, Kelly dropped the ball on a, on a pretty big project and Sarah asked her about it and Kelly said, oh, it’s no big deal. I’ll, I’ll, you know, I’ll figure it out later.
Don’t worry about it. And Sarah felt frustrated with this response because it was a big deal, and, and Kelly had dropped the ball and kind of blew it off. And so Sarah felt disrespected and, and confronted Kelly about this and said, Hey Kelly, like it’s not okay just to, to not follow through. And Kelly got really offended and said, I can’t believe you’re talking to me like this. You don’t respect me. They both said, you don’t respect me.
It was just a total shit show. And the reason it was was because they had no idea how to have a conversation like this that was not part of their relationship. And they had, and, and I think because they had a strong relationship, it was very different before it made it even worse. So instead of having this blow up like that, it’s really important when you are going to be managing a, a former friend or colleague to talk about this, saying, Hey, and the first conversation, once the change has been made saying, Hey, this is a little bit awkward, it’s going to be different.
Let’s talk about what this new relationship looks like and communicating, okay, saying, here is my style as a manager, what is your style as a team member? Let’s talk about how to give feedback. What are the ways in which you like to receive recognition and praise? How do we wanna have hard conversations? Do you wanna know that it’s coming? Do you want to, you know, hear it in the moment? Do you wanna think about it a little bit and, and then come back together later?
All of these things are critically, critically important to get out on the table while the tensions are low, before stuff goes sideways, so that when it does, you have this foundation laid and you are going to thank yourself so much that you had the conversation because stuff is gonna come up in that initial conversation that you never even realized. I think one thing to ask your, you know, the new person you’re gonna be managing is, what are some of the things that you’re struggling with that I could help you with?
What are some of the triggers that you’ve had from previous managers? You know, they might share that. I feel like, you know, when I, when it’s all negative constructive feedback with no positive, I feel like someone’s just picking on me by contrast, they might say, I just want the direct message, I don’t want the shit sandwich. Just tell me what it is. And we don’t know if we’ve never had that conversation, and again, because we had a previous relationship with that person, we’re probably coming in with a lot of beliefs on what that must be for the other person.
Assumptions like, oh, I know them, I know that this will be fine with them, but when work is involved, it’s not fine. The stuff that you thought would be totally fine, it’s not so fine. And you’re gonna find that out the hard way if you don’t have that conversation. So biggest, biggest lesson for today is having the conversation upfront. This is going to be different, this is changing our relationship. How do we wanna talk about the hard things?
How do we wanna recognize, you know, in, in appreciate, here is my style as a manager, let’s add into the mix work-life balance, working hours, talking about all of these things that should not be taken for granted. Just because you knew someone before doesn’t mean you don’t follow sort of standard protocols of how to interact with an employee because the person is not going to wanna stay a long time if it feels like you’re just sort of like randomly thinking of things for them to do when you have time and you know, you don’t have their career growth in mind.
So this is really critical also to establish you see them as a professional, you want them to succeed, that you see them as a part of your company or your team and you are rooting for their success. Have that conversation up front and things will go so much smoother. Thank you again for tuning in and if you’d like support for your team, especially if you are managing managers or exploring shifting your team and to having some people managing former colleagues, please reach out.
I have so many more strategies to share around this topic. That’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple podcast where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive. I always love to hear from you, so please reach out at liagarvin.com or message me on LinkedIn. See you next time.
Questions this episode answers
How do I manage a friend I just became the boss of without it getting weird?
The moment the role changes, have a direct conversation about it. Acknowledge that the relationship is shifting and talk through how you each want to handle hard things at work. Cover your management style, their work style, how you want to give and receive feedback, and even working hours. Most people skip this conversation because they assume the friendship will carry them through, but that assumption is exactly what causes blowups later. Getting it all on the table while tensions are low gives you a foundation to fall back on when something actually goes wrong.
Can you hire a friend or family member without ruining the relationship?
You can, but only if you have a real conversation before logistics ever come up. Talk about management style, work styles, how feedback will be delivered, how raises and promotions work, and how you both want to handle conflict. Friends and family members rarely have to give each other hard feedback, so that muscle is completely untested. If you skip this conversation and jump straight into the working relationship, you will eventually hit a moment that has no foundation under it, and the friendship takes the hit instead of the problem getting solved.
What should I ask a former colleague in our first one-on-one after I become their manager?
Ask them what they are struggling with that you can help with, what triggers they have had from past managers, and how they want to receive feedback. Some people want the direct message with no cushioning. Others feel picked on if feedback is all constructive with no recognition mixed in. You probably think you already know the answers because you were friends, but work changes things. The assumptions you carry from the friendship are often wrong once there is a manager and direct report dynamic involved.
Why do manager and employee conflicts get so bad when they used to be friends?
When two people were close before one became the other's manager, they often skipped the foundational conversation about how to handle work problems together. So when something goes wrong, neither person has any practice navigating it in this context. On top of that, the strength of the friendship can actually make it worse, because both people feel more personally stung by the interaction. The missing piece is not goodwill, it is a shared agreement on how to communicate when things get hard.
How do I show a friend I hired that I take their career growth seriously?
Treat them with the same professional structure you would give any team member. That means regular check-ins, clear expectations, conversations about their growth, and not just pulling them into tasks randomly when it suits you. Explicitly tell them you see them as a professional, that you want them to succeed, and that you are rooting for them as part of the team. People will not stay in a role long if it feels informal and directionless, even if the personal relationship is strong.