Boss, Mentor or Friend?

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Question:  I am a manager of a major chain retail store and I take my role as a mentor to my employees very seriously.  One of my employees is a warm charismatic guy but he tends to make terrible impulsive decisions.  He regularly came to me for advice and has probably been more candid than he should have been about his past legal history, drug use, and adventures with women.  As a result when he told me he was dating a co-worker 8 years his junior and asked me what I thought of it, I was honest with him that it seemed kinda creepy to me.  Since this conversation he has been distant, dishonest with me on more than one occasion and I'm worried about him.  I feel like I'm doing a bad job of balancing the roles of manager, mentor, and friend and I don't know what I can do to help him but still remain honest and professional.  Any ideas? 

Answer:  The hardest thing about managing any of these roles is telling people what they need to hear instead of what they want to hear.   A worse manager or friend would have given him a big thumbs up and then told the girl to run for the hills.  

To help keep your priorities in order remember that you cannot be a mentor to him or anyone if you lose your job for running the store poorly or allowing employees to conduct themselves in a way that will open the business up to risk or liability.

As long as his jugement is poor but it is limited to his personal life then you should stay out of it unless he invites you in.  In this case he did and he was dissapointed with your response.  That is a risk we all face in any time we ask for advice when we are really just looking for a rubber stamp of approval on our questionable behaviors.

If your employee really has a tendency to make poor impulsive decisions no one can help him until he determines what his passion is.  Many people have a hard time delaying gratification.  How can you get yourself to wait through the bad times if you don't believe any good times are on the way? So to brighten up your life you smoke some weed, do some coke, have unprotected sex...

The problems with these diversions are obvious even to the people who do them but you cannot take a coping skill (even an unhealthy one) away without replacing it with something else. the key is to get him to replace it with something healthy and positive that gives him a good feeling on a very frequent basis.

The best advice for someone who is feeling down and depressed is for him to get active helping others. This can take him out of his self centered and self defeating behaviors. Helping out with animals, feeding people at a homeless shelter, doing anything that helps him to realize many people have it worse than he does, is a good first step.



Ultimately all you can do is offer these suggestions and allow him to take them or leave them.  As a manager you can directly confront the fact that he has been acting differently toward you since your conversation and you can express you concern for him but after that the ball is in his court.  

Do not be surprised if he continues to lie to you and if he steals from your store.  When he lies to you, especially about little stupid stuff that you probably wouldn't even care about, it is probably not you he is lying to as much as himself. In order to tell the truth we must admit it and if he is carrying around a lot of shame then honesty is a tough habit to maintain.

It sounds like you are doing an excellent job in being a caring manager and mentor.  While friendship with the people who work for you is not impossible you may need to take a step back from that if puts your role as a responsible manager in jeopardy.