A high-performing remote team starts with organic core values, intentional hiring for accountability, and incentive structures tied directly to individual results. Justin Benson, founder of Bara Agency, shares how his team runs on values like ‘leave people better than you found them’ and ‘do what you say you’re going to do,’ plus quarterly in-person retreats that rebuild relationship currency. This episode is essential for any owner building or scaling a distributed team.
This episode is part of the Team Culture, Dynamics & Tough Personalities series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“…the relationship has changed. You are now in a position of power. You have control over some different lovers. Maybe it’s that person’s financial success.”
“…to act like nothing’s changed is totally the same is actually not true. It’s disingenuous and it sets both of you up for not really understanding how to interact.”
“…when you name it, you open up the ability to have the conversation about it.”
“…you were chosen for a reason. And so you might feel some imposter feelings. You might feel like you want to downplay it so that it doesn’t shake up the vibe of the group.”
“…we can’t just like hope and wish it goes well.”
Episode highlights
Why pretending nothing changed backfires
Lia opens with a confession: she has managed former peers multiple times, and twice she handled it badly. The mistake both times was the same. She walked in saying “it’s totally the same, no big deal” and tried to act like the relationship had not shifted. The problem is that it had. As the manager, you now hold responsibility over someone’s career trajectory, their feedback, their growth. Acting like you are still equals is not humble, it is disingenuous, and it leaves both people confused about how to interact.
The second half of that same mistake: she diminished her own authority to avoid seeming like she thought she was better than the other person. The result? When she needed to assert direction, the other person reasonably pushed back, because the ground rules had never been set.
The first move: name the shift
The fix starts before any friction surfaces. When you step into the manager role, have the conversation early and directly. Something like: “Hey, I know we’ve been friends for a long time. I’ve been asked to be the manager now, and I recognize that’s going to change our dynamic, especially at work. Let’s talk about it.”
Naming it does two things. It makes the professional and personal contexts distinct rather than blurred. And it opens the door to the second move.
The second move: co-create your working norms
Once you have named the shift, use that opening to set expectations together. Ask how the person likes to receive feedback. Do they want a heads-up email first, or is direct and immediate better? Talk about what stays between you as manager and employee versus what bleeds into the personal relationship. Clarify that having visibility into sensitive information at work does not mean that crosses into your friendship outside.
Lia is clear: she recommends this conversation with every team member, not just former friends. But with someone you already know, it is especially easy to assume you can skip it because you think you already know each other. That assumption is exactly what gets managers into trouble. Treat it as a blank slate, because you have never been in this dynamic with this person before.
The third move: own your authority
Downplaying your role to keep the vibe comfortable backfires. If you walk in saying “I’m not sure why I’m here, we’re basically still equals,” your team member is left wondering what that means for their own career. Instead, lead with your vision. Share how you like to lead. Be specific about what you are committed to helping them build toward.
Lia gives a powerful example from her own career: she was passed over for a manager role and a new person was brought in above her. That manager came to her directly, acknowledged the disappointment, named that he knew she had been doing great work, and made a clear commitment to support her getting to the next level without adding red tape. That conversation re-bought her in completely. The manager’s actions then matched his words.
The lesson: naming the awkward thing and pairing it with a genuine commitment to the other person’s growth is what turns a potentially resentful dynamic into a strong working relationship.
When you are only one rung above them
A specific version of this challenge comes up when there is not much hierarchy between you and the person you are now leading. They may wonder whether you can actually help them grow if there is not enough headroom. Call that out. Tell them you are thinking about your own career trajectory and theirs at the same time, that their growth is not in competition with yours, and that there is room for both of you to move forward. Removing that unspoken worry frees up a lot of the tension.
It is never too late to course-correct
If you are already in the middle of this situation and it is not going well, Lia is direct: it is not too late. You can pause, acknowledge that you want to be clearer, and have the conversation now. None of these moves require starting over. They just require naming what has been left unnamed.
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 118: How to build a high-performing remote team with real accountability and culture. A high-performing remote team starts with organic core values, intentional hiring for accountability, and incentive structures tied directly to individual results. Justin Benson, founder of Bara Agency, shares how his team runs on values like ‘leave people better than you found them’ and ‘do what you say you’re going to do,’ plus quarterly in-person retreats that rebuild relationship currency. This episode is essential for any owner building or scaling a distributed 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)
Today, when we talk about managing former friends, I just want to call it. It is really hard. I have been in that situation a number of times. Two of those times, I handled it really, really badly. And I want to share that because you’re not alone. If you have handled it and you feel like, gosh, this isn’t going well, I’m in the middle of it, and it’s not getting any easier. And so that’s why I want to talk about it.
And it’s something that even if it’s going well at first, when we run into some hiccups, it can get even harder. So please tune in if you’re in that situation, because you might be in the situation in the future where you’re going to need some of these tools. Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where you get a masterclass in managing your team with ease in 15 minutes or less. I’m Leah Garvin, your host and team operations consultant.
Through this show and my programs with small businesses and corporate teams, I condense a decade of experience driving team operations and some of the most influential companies in tech into strategies to save you time, money, and most of all, stress. Doesn’t matter if you’re a business owner who realized that running a team isn’t as easy as you thought it would be. Are a new manager learning the ropes or a seasoned manager ready to up their game?
Everyone is welcome to hang out with Managing Made Simple. From conflicts to feedback to delegating and more, we leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it, and everything in between. Let’s go. Welcome back to the show. Today we are talking about one of my favorite topics. I know I say every topic is my favorite topic, but this is one that comes up all the time for folks. I mentioned I was going to talk about it soon, and that is how to manage former friends, former peers, people you knew before.
This comes up all the time. If we’re a corporate manager, a lot of times we get asked to lead a team that we have been a part of. Actually, the Gallup organization reports that the number two reasons people even become managers are tenure in a role so that you’ve been on the team for a long time or having had past success in a role, so you did a really good job at it. Now, neither of those two reasons are actually because you wanted to be a manager or even were good at it or had any training.
That’s a whole other can of worms that we need to fix. That’s why I do so much work on training managers, building effective managers because, hey, a lot of times we start the role and we have no support in doing it. If you’re listening to this and you’re like, oh my God, I need more support, bring some of your workshops to my team, help us, please reach out because that is my favorite thing to do is train managers on how to be their best.
Obviously, that’s why on the show we’re all about making managing easier because dealing with people is hard enough. So today when we talk about managing former friends, I just want to call it, it is really hard. I have been in that situation a number of times. Two of those times I handled it really, really badly and I want to share that because you’re not alone if you have handled it and you feel like, gosh, this isn’t going well, I’m in the middle of it and it’s not getting any easier.
So that’s why I want to talk about it and it’s something that even if it’s going well at first, when we run into some hiccups, it can get even harder. So please tune in if you’re in that situation because you might be in a situation in the future where you’re going to need some of these tools. So here’s what we don’t want to do when we’re managing someone that we already knew and this is where I went wrong and this is what I mean by I handle it badly.
So when I was managing or asked to manage someone that I had already known and kind of been a peer of how to work in relationship with, actually in both times, I went into the situation saying, hey, you know, it’s totally the same. It’s no big deal. I’m just kind of here. I’m just going to give you a little feedback. No big deal. Our relationship is totally the same. Like why should anything change? And that is our first mistake because the reality is the relationship has changed.
You are now in a position of power. You have control over some different lovers. Maybe it’s that person’s financial success. Maybe it’s not like that might be in other people’s hands, but you do have responsibility over their career trajectory. You have responsibility over giving them feedback, over helping them reach their goals. So to act like nothing’s changed is totally the same is actually not true. It’s disingenuous and it sets both of you up for not really understanding how to interact.
Like the second thing that went wrong, what I did was I didn’t take kind of ownership of the fact that I was asked to be a leader. And that was an important thing. And that did change the dynamic. And instead I was like, hey, I don’t know. Like I’m the manager now. Like we’re kind of like still equals. And I really diminished the actual position that I was in and trying to make it not seem like I thought I was better than the other person.
And I think, again, that really puts us on the back foot because then when we want to assert authority, the person’s like, hey, I kind of thought we were equals here. And the same thing comes into play, I know with my five-year-old when she thinks kind of she and I are just hanging out running the show. And she’s like, yeah, I don’t want to go to bed. Like, look, you’re not going to bed. I realized like, ooh, I have, I’m really laxed on, you know, really establishing the authority that one person is actually in charge of this situation.
The other person is kind of following along, if you will. And we don’t need to make it like a parent relationship on a team, but you know what I mean? Like when you ask them to do something and they’re like, you do it, you know, that’s when you know, okay, I gotta, I gotta reign this situation in. So again, if you’re in the middle of this, I want to honor that it’s not too late. It is something that you can always, with any of the stuff I talk about on the show, it’s always something you can go, oh, you know, I realized there’s a way I could be more clear here.
Anytime you can pause this episode, do that right now. You can do it right after. I would actually recommend you listen to the whole thing so that you can have an effective conversation here. But it doesn’t mean the whole thing is out the window. Now, again, if you’re not in the situation yet, or you haven’t been, definitely want to tune into the rest of this because a lot of us find ourselves in a situation where we are overseeing someone that we have a previous relationship in some capacity, right?
We are on a team and we develop relationships with our peers, or maybe we ask a friend, like a friend is great for a job. So we refer them and they end up joining our team. We don’t know when it’s going to come up. And so it’s really helpful to think about how do we approach the situation? Let’s say even, you know, you’re volunteering at your kid’s school and you have to organize a group and you’re the leader of that situation.
And a lot of these people are people that you have, you know, wine nights with all the time, or you go to the birthday parties with your friends. How do you shift that dynamic? So this applies to a lot of stuff within work and outside. So there’s a couple of things that I really recommend you do. And the first one is acknowledging that there’s been a relationship change. And this is something that’s really, we want to do from the outset, right?
We don’t want to do this later and be like, Hey, I guess things are different. When you’re asked to be a manager, or you are hired in that role or promoted, or let’s say, again, you’re leading something outside of work, organizing a group of people, acknowledging and saying, Hey, I realized this is going to, you know, for in this context, this changes our relationship a little bit. Let’s talk about it. You want to name it. Okay.
Because it is different. And when you name it, you open up the ability to have the conversation about it. And so something as easy as, you know, Hey, Sarah, you know, I know we, you know, we’ve been friends for a long time. And, you know, now, you know, I’ve, I’ve been, you know, asked to, to be the manager. And, um, I recognize that’s going to change the dynamic of a relationship, especially just within work. So let’s have a conversation about it.
That starts to shift you into, Oh, we have professional and we have personal, and those are not the same. And they’re not completely intertwined. This is going to be really helpful for you to set boundaries, to be able to give feedback, to talk about, you know, things that are going well, that are not talking about money, have hard conversations, all that stuff follows because you have named that there is a shift. And now because you’ve named it, you can do the second thing that I strongly recommend.
Do you want some hands-on support for all of the topics I talk about on this show? Like a team expert who has worked within tech giants like Apple and Google, as well as small businesses on hand to help you delegate and get out of the weeds, handle tough conversations with team members, plan your hiring strategy, and get your teams to help bring in more revenue? Then it’s time to sign up for my Team Whisperer Consulting Sprint.
For 90 days, you have me in your back pocket to help you navigate any and every issue happening on your team. DM me the word sprint on Instagram or email me at hello at leahgarvin.com and let’s build your unstoppable team. Second thing that I strongly recommend is to, you know, talk about how you want to deal with some of the things that will come up. So saying, Hey, Sarah, you know, um, I wanted to just name it.
Like our relationship is, is changed, especially within work. And, um, we we’re going to learn a lot of new things about each other and it’s really exciting. There’s a lot of opportunity there. So let’s talk about this. Let’s, you know, how are, how do you like to receive feedback? I don’t really know. You know, I’ve never been in that position before. Um, if, if there’s something that, um, I see as an opportunity to, to improve on, what’s the best way that you like to hear that?
Do you want me to send you an email? And then we talk about it later. Do you want me to come to you right away? Um, you say, Hey, here’s how I like to receive feedback. This is really what works for me. I’m talking about, you know, some, it might be a little bit different, right? I understand, you know, I’m have insight into compensation and financials and, and committing. Hey, that’s still between us at work. It’s not like that’s going to bleed into our friendship outside.
Right. And so you, you start to talk about that. There are these work things that you are going to be working through, and it’s different than whatever happened outside in the personal space. And again, this will give you a set of expectations and norms that you’re both going to be following in this new dynamic. And then if something comes up and you have to give Sarah some hard feedback, um, you say, Hey, you know, I know when we talked about, um, you know, how we want to interact or, or have these kinds of conversations, it was important to you to get some insight upfront of what we wanted to talk through and then have some time to process.
So that’s why I’m doing that. And you can name that you’re honoring this with this person. Now talking about how you want to have hard conversations, give feedback, um, give recognition is something I suggest you do with all of your team members. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been friends before or not, but it’s especially important with people you already knew because sometimes you can assume, Oh, I already know I’ve, I’ve seen them outside of here. I can guess we know each other.
And so you want to really do this intentionally so that you don’t bring the assumptions in with someone you don’t know. Of course, you know that you’d have to have that conversation. So you want to literally treat it as a blank slate because you don’t know with this person, what the dynamic is with you as the manager. You haven’t been in that situation yet. I have been in situations where I’ve worked for family members. Um, some of those have gone really, really well.
Some of those haven’t gone as well because we didn’t understand how we knew each other in this dynamic. Again, I mentioned I have managed former peers, some of which former friends, and it was tough because I didn’t take these steps of saying, Hey, let’s name it. This is different. How does it look here in this, in this container of the workplace? And then talking through these things up front, we had to talk about them when they came up and then it was, we didn’t have any norms around it.
We didn’t know how to deal with that conversation. And then the last thing I really encourage you to do, right? I said, there was another thing I did wrong, which was to kind of diminish my authority, act like, Oh, I don’t know why I’m here. Like it’s, we’re all just equals. And instead owning it and coming in and saying, Hey, um, you know, what I’m really excited about as a manager is that, you know, I, this is the way that I lead, or I have been so excited to be able to empower this team to, to reach their career goals.
You know, I know some of the things that you’ve been really excited about building into, and here’s a vision that I have for helping you get there. And so you assert your authority, you, you come in and with an intention, you know, maybe you say, Hey, here is, here’s the way that I like to lead. I, I am really direct when it comes to giving feedback and I’m really compassionate too. And I’m always going to be rooting for you on your side.
So I want you to know, if I share some tough feedback or give you some constructive criticism, it is because I know your goals. And I, and I can see those things that are going to help you get there. You want to show someone you’re on their team through asserting authority and saying, Hey, here are, here is the vision I have for getting you to where you want to be. Now, this is especially important. If maybe you are not that much senior to the person that you’re managing.
And again, this applies, if you were friends or not peers or not, but I think in this context, it’s again, especially important. One of the things that can cause some, some friction on teams when you’re managing someone that you are either the same level of hierarchy as, or only one rung up the ladder. And the person’s like, Oh, great. You know, how’s this person going to help me get to where I want to go? There’s not enough headroom.
And you call, you name that and you say, Hey, I know that I’m only one kind of level up the, up the ladder ahead of you. And as I’m looking out to kind of how I grow my career, I’m looking for you as well. It’s not a blocker for you. There’s so much room out here. There’s so much opportunity and share what your goals are so that I can help you get there. And you just, you know, you, you make sure that person sees that you’re not worried.
They’re going to like leapfrog you or overstep nothing like that, that your career trajectory and theirs are completely, you know, like there’s possibilities for all of you. And I think when we do these things, we, we shed this, you know, worry around, God, I, I don’t know what I can say or do, or should I even be here? We, we, we own that. Yeah. We, we are the manager for a reason. We’ve been asked to do this for a reason.
And in episode 77, I interview a good friend of mine, Robin Rapp, who talks through some of the things that she dealt with and strategies she had when she was managing former peers and friends. And I think one of the big ones, and I encourage you to listen back to that episode is, is really not diminishing your, your expertise, you know, coming in and saying, Hey, here is my approach to, to managing. Here’s the vision I see for the team.
And, and to lean into that because you were chosen for a reason. And so you might feel some imposter feelings. You might feel like you want to downplay it so that it doesn’t shake up the vibe of the group. But what that ends up doing is it doesn’t instill confidence in the team, right? If, if my good friend becomes the manager and they’re like, well, we’ll see, I don’t know how I got here. I’m like, okay, what does this mean for my career?
If my good friend instead, or someone that I had been working with for, for a number of years says, Hey, I am so excited to be in this, in this position as the lead of this team, because this is my vision for it. And here’s how I see all of us being able to grow. You have this goal. I have these ideas for how you’re going to get there. Boom. And I’ll tell you, I had a situation many years ago where I was hoping to become a manager of a team.
And what happened instead was someone else was put into that role and I was essentially layered, right? So I had a new person on top and then I had one more, you know, rung of hierarchy to get past. And when this happened, I was really frustrated. I was, I was devastated. I felt like, Oh, like instead of me becoming the leader, like I got sandwiched with another person. Like, what does that say about me? And that manager came to me and he said, Hey, I know it’s disappointing when, you know, you had wanted this role and someone else comes in.
Like, I didn’t even know that until I started, but I would have been frustrated. And he says, you know, I saw, I know what a good job that you were doing. I’ve heard about the work you’re doing. I’ve seen it. And I’m going to do everything I can to support you in getting to the next level of your career. That’s the commitment I’m making to you. I’m not going to introduce any more red tape. I’m going to let you be free to do your thing because I know you’re doing a great job.
And he said that, and that instilled so much confidence in, wow, like I was re-bought into this team because he, he said it and then his actions completely aligned with it. And I want to say, you know, we, it’s okay to name that fear. It’s okay to name that frustration. Maybe you and your peer were both gunning for that promotion and you got it. And you could say, Hey, I realized this might be kind of weird.
You might be disappointed. I would be disappointed. And I want to say, I’m really committed to helping you get to that next level. Wow. Okay. Now they see, Oh, this might be better than just that peer friendship, right? Because this person is going to, they’re an advocate for me, but all of this comes through having these conversations. And that’s why we can’t just like hope and wish it goes well. All right. So if you want a little bit more insight, tune into episode 77, the interview with Robin Rapp, that’s a great one where you can kind of get more, more tools for navigating this situation.
And again, if you want some more concrete skills, I, like I said, top two reasons that people become managers is tenure in their past role and, and success in a past role. So you’ve been there a long time and you were good at it. Doesn’t mean you wanted to be a manager or good at that, or have had any training. So if you want training for yourself or your team, please reach out. Hello at Leah Garvin.com or pass my information along to a decision maker that could bring in a training to your team.
Because the more, the more kind of hands-on practice and skills and specific strategies and tools we get, the better we feel, the less we feel overwhelmed, the less we’re putting that on our team, the better our team does and everybody’s jobs get easier. And that is why on Managing Made Simple, I am all about making all this stuff easier. See you next time. 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.
With that said, let’s spread the word. If you love this episode, please pass it along to someone who might benefit from it. See you next time.
Questions this episode answers
How do I manage a friend or former coworker without making things awkward?
The first thing to do is name the change out loud. Tell your friend directly that you know the relationship has shifted now that you are in a leadership role, and that you want to talk through what that looks like at work. When you name it, you open the door to set expectations together. Pretending nothing has changed is the mistake that creates confusion later, because the reality is you now have responsibility over their career trajectory, their feedback, and their growth, and that is genuinely different from a peer relationship.
What should I say to a former peer when I become their manager?
Have a direct conversation early. Tell them you recognize the dynamic has changed within work, and ask how they like to receive feedback, what works for them when there is a tough conversation coming, and how they prefer to stay in the loop. Also share your own leadership style and your vision for helping them reach their goals. Setting these norms up front means you are not scrambling to figure it out mid-conflict. Treat it like a blank slate, even if you have known the person for years, because you have never been in this specific dynamic with them before.
How do I assert authority as a manager without seeming like I think I'm better than my friends?
Own the role rather than downplaying it. When a leader says things like 'I don't know why I'm here, we're basically equals,' it does not make people feel more comfortable. It actually makes them question what your leadership means for their career. Instead, come in with a clear vision and say something like, 'Here is how I lead, here is what I see for this team, and here is how I want to help you get to where you want to go.' You show you are on their side by asserting your purpose, not by pretending the role does not exist.
What if my friend is disappointed that I got the promotion instead of them?
Name it. You can say directly that you realize this might be disappointing, that you would feel the same way, and that you are genuinely committed to helping them reach the next level. When a leader acknowledges the frustration rather than ignoring it, and then backs that up with real actions, it can actually rebuild trust and re-engage that team member. The conversation does not fix everything on its own, but staying silent and hoping the awkwardness fades is what causes the relationship to deteriorate.
Is it too late to fix things if I've already been managing a friend the wrong way?
It is not too late. You can pause at any point and have the conversation you should have had at the start. Acknowledge that you want to be more clear about how the two of you operate in this work relationship, ask how they like to receive feedback, and share your approach as a leader. Clarity can come later than ideal and still make a real difference. The relationship is not ruined just because you did not set these norms on day one.