The workplace is full of challenges. Of course there’s the challenges of doing your job, but the relationships that form in the workplace present challenges, too.
A job can be hard enough without jeopardizing it by making bad decisions. Take for example your relationship with your boss. While it may feel like a boost to your ego to develop a special connection with your boss, your colleagues probably will see things differently. Learning how to manage the perceptions of others is part of good career management.
National Boss Day has been around for 30 years, and it’s a good time to get a snapshot of how bosses often are perceived by employees.
According to the latest American Workplace Insights Survey, by Adecco Group, 53 percent of workers don’t think their boss is honest. But the news isn’t all bad. The majority – 65 percent of respondents – stated they would not change anything about their relationship with their boss.
With over half the workforce having some concerns about honesty issues, you can see where dating the boss would only add to an already-suspicious environment. Your career most likely will be affected as you might be perceived as being dishonest as well, because of your different relationship with your boss.
Daing your boss creates an unbalanced relationship and blurs the boundaries between your professional life and your personal life.
Albert Bernstein, Ph.D. in his latest book, “Am I the Only Sane One Working Here?” offers some good advice for judging whether or not your dating relationship with your boss could affect your career. He has five questions – and if both parties can answer yes to these questions – then, according to Bernstein, you could avoid jeopardizing your career. With every no answer, you increase the risk of sabotaging your career.
And here are the questions:
1. Can you date openly? There are numerous reasons why people do not acknowledge relationships, but not doing so adds to suspicion and distrust. What will happen if you get caught and what are the next steps if you do?
2. Are you at approximately the same level in the organization? The unbalance of power with dating a decision maker usually causes the most problems with people.
3. Are you willing to discuss problems, real or imagined, that your relationship may cause for people who work with you? In order for a romantic relationship to be successful at work, the couple involved need to be willing to consider that colleagues and others around them might not be as excited about the relationship.
4. Can everything you’re doing and saying at work be done or said in public? A good example would be having a conversation in an elevator full of employees or meeting behind closed doors.
5. Do you unequivocally grant the other person the right to say no? Without the ability to be free to say no, an unpleasant situation could evolve. This relates to the balance-of-power issue.
If dating your boss, or any office romance, can pass the five-question test, then you might have a chance of having a good working relationship as well as a personal one. If your answers are more negative than positive, consider the risks involved.
