No matter how well your friendships with your colleagues have been, we may need put up some walls. As it may seem, if you do not establish professional boundaries, you may not have the objectivity to supervise effectively.
Many companies fall short when it comes to training new managers. Some companies do not even bother to train their managers at all and thinking that everything goes well as long no complaints from the production floor. Your bosses won’t expect you to know how to tackle every aspect of your new job from the outset, but they will assume that you will ask for the help you need. Without training, it’s easy for a new manager to overlook the implications of what one wrong thing said or done could end up. If you can’t get the level of help you need internally, sign up for one of the educational programs and improve your own skills.
If you’re new to a company, understand that no matter how similar the culture seems to others you’ve experienced, it is going to have its own unique and sometimes bizarre behaviour. Listen carefully when colleagues volunteer tips on, say, the best time of day to approach the General manager or CEO, and pay attention when they tell stories about the office.
Be careful about seemingly getting too close with any one of your seniors — even your direct boss. The best job-protection insurance, especially as a newbie, is to remain as neutral as possible on controversial issues. If your boss asks for a point of view, run through the pros and cons of a decision rather than answer directly.
Should your manager ask for your support at a meeting, offer it, but remain as neutral as possible when you’re at the meeting room table. If the boss asked you later why you didn’t speak up more, you can say something diplomatic, like “Maybe I wasn’t paying attention that point in time”. Remember that your boss could be gone anytime or tomorrow someone else got promoted and take over his place — and you could be working for the person whose point of view he totally opposed. I see this too often everywhere and my coming to 30 years of working life.
Showing your bosses that you’re ready to take on new projects isn’t just a matter of stellar performance or demonstrating initiative — though these things certainly help. You also need to prove to the top brass that they can trust you in many ways. However in big organizations, you may not be able to get close to top brass of the management and your chances of getting "up there" would be very slim. To establish more trust with your supervisor, err on the side of keeping your conversations quiet and, when in doubt, ask if the content is for general consumption.
Even with solid backing from the top, you won’t be able to get anything done if your section fellows are not behind you. This often means building support among longtime or more senior workers — including some who wanted your job and didn’t get it. You won’t win any allegiance by reminding them that you have an MBA that your last gig was at an even bigger company. Meet with each member of your team individually to learn about his background and ask for advice on upcoming work load. Let them know you’ll be relying on their expertise. You don’t have to act on the advice they give you, but listening carefully will go a long way toward building the good relationships you will need to succeed.
From the outset, tell everyone on your team how you will evaluate performance. If anyone in the group slacks off or breaks the rules, it will be easier to raise the issue in an objective way. If it is very clear what you are measuring, you can say, ‘This job requires x, y, and z. I’m not seeing z”.
Confront poor performance head on. If someone — friend or not — is failing, act decisively. Give formal warnings, recommend how to remedy the problem, and keep a written record of your conversations. If the situation reaches a point where you have to let your poor performer go, you don’t want him or her to be surprised. Alternatively, get the HR to do the counseling.
If a manager lays out the " pros and cons of a decision rather than answer directly." they might be seen as either dodging the technical issue or maybe that you don't have the experience to give a proper answer or worst of all does not know how to manage; because you are being evaluated through a more critical lens at that time (did the management make the right decision to promote you or was the promotion too early, etc).
The quesiton becomes, if you are really able to provide input that will be valued... and actually taken into consideration. Stating your opinion and mentioning that a) it's ultimately not your decision and b) you are seeing it through YOUR lens, and you'd like to hear also what others thoughts are, make it a better choice than walking the non-committal line. It lets everyone know that you've got an opinion and technical acumen that they will be working with and that you are interested in seeing the bigger or broader perspective, because these days, there are too many factors involving or contributing to an issue, eg. inexperience worker, many newcomers undergoing a stage of basic training,etc. It also lets them know that you are committed and interested in the well-being of the organization business, not involving or getting tangle in the office politics.
You can befriend your colleagues whoever you naturally can click with as long as you don't play favorites at work and you have an clear signal that adult-to-adult understanding of your differing roles. Work is work. Friendship is friendship. Sometimes work requires that you make difficult decisions and tackle tough issues but not necessary to offend or stab someone in the back or say bad things of others in front of bosses. This will reflect later your wellbeing when the bosses started to realise you may be "getting personal" with some of your peers or colleagues. Working life in an office environment with many different kind of human being is never simple or easy. To forgo a real friendship in this day and age when true friends are hard to come by seems more like risk avoidance. If both parties understand the roles, the friendship can work, even if it takes some hands to clap. That's been the experience, both from having been in the role of the subordinate and from having been the senior manager.
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