The one work boundary I won't break

PSA: Don’t let colleagues follow your personal social media accounts.

(I’m excluding LinkedIn in this discussion)

I wish someone had told me that earlier in my career.

It doesn’t matter how friendly you are or how long you’ve known each other. As soon as your direct report asks to follow, different rules apply.

This sounds like common sense, but in more relaxed work environments, people drop their guard without thinking it through.

Inevitably, something will happen that breaks your trust: 

• They post during work hours from an off-site location (even if it's a Latergram or you have flexible hours).

• They take a sick day but post from the beach.

• They post something that clashes with your beliefs.

Note: there's a LOT of filler story and missing assumptions in the scenarios above. Even if you are a "cool boss," you are susceptible to questioning the motives and intentions of your direct reports– especially when things are tough at work. 

When you see a questionable post, I've seen reactions go one of two ways:

👎🏼 Avoidant. You avoid talking about it. This will damage your relationship over time. A slow burn of unconscious bias in how you assign projects, performance reviews, and raises.

👎🏼 Punitive. You jump to action. This will damage your relationship immediately.

Both of these steps skip a crucial component of leadership:

An actual conversation.

Surprisingly, my social media rule is not the majority opinion

Only 33% of people prefer not to connect with their colleagues on social media at all (allaboutcookies). And 50% of people feel like they have a better relationship with the coworkers they follow on social media.

Here’s a breakdown of what platforms people are connecting with their co-workers on:

This makes me uneasy.

In an idyllic world, employers do not surveil their employees’ private social media profiles. But we’re seeing the consequences of posting online increase, and I don’t think we’re ready to accept people as their whole selves–no matter how much we try to hype up authenticity at work.

Let's back up.

I've been burned by connecting with my colleagues on social media. I was part of a work team that was super close. It was part of the culture of the team and the company, so it wasn't out of the ordinary to connect.

So what happened?

It's complicated.

I lost their trust with an innocuous Instagram post.

There was a company policy, and to them, it looked like I had broken it.

I was removed as the lead of a big, career-defining project. And ultimately left the company because of it.

I know they handled it how they thought was best. But it left me with a strict boundary: no coworkers on my social media. Ever.

What's a leader to do?

I have three recommendations for how to approach social media requests at work.

1. Just don't deal with it. Put those follows on block. Seriously.

2. Be transparent about your expectations. Get ahead of it. Have a conversation as soon as you start working together about social media, including how you will approach seeing anything that might be inappropriate (think: illegal, racist, sexist, homophobic, etc) and reviewing the company policy for social media.

3. Have an actual conversation. If you see something that bothers you, approach the person with curiosity. Seek to understand vs. seek to punish.