It’s not uncommon for some leaders to treat their teams as families.
They ask everyone on the team to care, trust, respect, and support each other unconditionally, regardless of their performance or contribution.
As leaders, they show concern for others both professionally and personally, and work hard to make everyone feel included, accepted, and valued as an integral part of the team.
Just like in a family, leaders and teammates celebrate successes and milestones together, and share ideas, concerns, and feedback without the fear of judgment.
Over time, the goal is for everyone on the team to care deeply and genuinely about each other and to make the necessary sacrifices for the family to prosper and develop.
Research suggests that teams that operate like families are more trusting and collaborative and instill more pride, commitment, and loyalty for their members.
The strong sense of belonging and connection members feel increases retention and shared responsibility for the work.
Leaders who treat their teams like a family don’t believe the approach must weaken expectations and accountability. Instead, they believe high standards coupled with high caring can create high morale with sustained long-term success.
Sounds pretty good.
Yet, most leaders don’t bring the family metaphor to life with their teams. They instinctively know that, despite many known benefits, family-like teams are commonly plagued with issues that undermine long-term effectiveness.
Here are a few:
- Family-like teams often blur the lines between personal and professional life, leading people to feel pressured to sacrifice their well-being for the team. This often produces burnout and work-life balance issues that diminish job satisfaction.
- Unlike families, team members sometimes want to leave or to separate their private lives from their work lives. The family approach makes them feel an exaggerated sense of guilt any time they feel their actions might disappoint their “work family.” This creates stress and the dissatisfaction that comes with it.
- Because they are dedicated and loyal to team members, leaders may delay or avoid making necessary decisions that affect people negatively. When they do what’s right for the enterprise, it contradicts the notion of family and produces strong reactions of hypocrisy and accusations of leaders acting cruel and uncaring.
- In a family-like setting, feedback and performance reviews become more personal rather than constructive. This can often create defensiveness and conflict that would not occur in a more typical team. Like in families, feedback is often withheld so as not to upset people. This undermines performance.
- Without realizing it, leaders can easily become caught up in unhealthy power dynamics where they act parentally and treat team members like children, directing their actions, rewarding them inconsistently, and demanding that they make sacrifices to maintain the family harmony. Like with parents, favoritism often occurs or is perceived.
- Family-like teams encourage conformity and discourage dissent and disagreement. Diverse voices and viewpoints are seen as disloyal and out of step with the family. As a result, any debate becomes constrained, and people often go along without expressing their honest views.
- Leaders and team members in a family focus often have a difficult time setting professional and personal boundaries. Protecting personal time or advocating for themselves can prove troublesome. In work families, saying “No” can be seen as an act of disloyalty at times.
The list goes on.
When it comes to the workplace, the team metaphor is far superior to the family trope. The best leaders don’t treat work groups as families. Instead, they harvest the honey of trust and connection without recreating the hive.
