Social media has managed to blur the lines between work life and home life. These days many of us are growing more comfortable openly sharing things about ourselves that might not normally be public knowledge to our co-workers or our boss. With just a few clicks our pals at work can be flipping through our family photos, reading our opinions on the latest political event, or browsing through pics of whatever we ate last evening. It’s all out there.
A friend of mine reached out to me about a situation she was struggling with. Her boss, who tends to be very manipulative, had stumbled across her Tik Tok profile and was making some awkward comments. She decided to block him. He, in turn, sent her a text message saying that even if she blocked him, he could still watch her posts through other accounts. That crossed the line. I told her to go to HR.
But this situation provides a teaching moment to all managers and leaders. I’m going to share with you some advice from someone who was managing long before social media was a thing, but who has some definite opinions on how we should manage in a world where our direct reports have online lives that we could look at.
Stay off your people’s social media accounts!
Period. Did you hear me? Run, don’t walk, away from their profiles online. Nothing good will come of you snooping around on their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, to Tik Tok. Nothing. When you made the decision to move into a management role, you decided to draw certain lines about how you would engage with your team. This is one of those lines. Don’t cross it.
I could give you 100 reasons why following your people on social media is a bad idea. But just suffice it to say that you do not want to have to factor their online life into your assessment of their work performance or how you think of them as an employee. There is simply no good reason for you to be checking up on your people’s social media accounts.
What if your people want to follow you?
If one of your direct reports wants to follow you online, I leave that one up to you. I personally have no problem with it, as I deliberately and consciously have created an online presence across every social media account that I am not ashamed of. But as a manager and a leader there is no escaping the fact that you represent the organization you work for. So be mindful about what you say and post online. If someone wants to follow me, that is fine. But if they report to me, I will not follow them back. I want to leave your personal life out of our relationship.
Creepy Bosses
How should you handle bad, creepy bosses, like the one I described above, if they are getting weird about following your online social media accounts? Start by simply blocking them and 9 times out of 10 they will just leave it alone. If they get weird, go to HR. They simply have no business trying to engage with you outside of business hours on your social media.