Mixing Authority and Friendship

A listener once asked me to talk about the special challenges of mixing friendship with authority. The issue often comes up when parents want to be their children`s best friends, teachers invite students to treat them as equals, or managers are overly chummy with the people they supervise.

Clearly, there are benefits to enriching these relationships with the affection, trust, and loyalty that come with friendship. A casual atmosphere where you can call your parent, teacher, or boss "Bob" or "Debby" invites openness and is more pleasant than formal relationships where authority is continually emphasized by titles or other traditions that emphasize the power one person has over the other.

The problem is, sooner or later the expectations of friendship will conflict with the responsibilities of authority. Parents, teachers, and bosses can be friends only up to a point.

Friendships are voluntary. Friends are equals. And since the bonds of friendship are essentially formed by affection, friends have to be concerned with being liked. People in authority, on the other hand, have a job to do. They have to set boundaries, give instructions, and impose discipline, even if it engenders dislike or hostility.

Friends can accept each other without a need to change, improve, or judge, but people with authority have a duty to be more demanding. They have a responsibility to insist on character and competence.

Authority is much more complicated than friendship, and it takes character to be a good parent, teacher, or boss.

*By Michael Josephson, reminding you that character counts