Why bosses should embrace romance in the office

Love happens at work. Whatever you may think as a leader in your business, you don’t control your people (and that’s a good thing). And yet, leaders attempt to prohibit and restrict their employees’ romantic behaviour.

Ex-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s “bonk ban” may be Australia’s most famous attempt at curtailing ardent mergers in the office. But bans don’t work, all they do is send the behaviour into the darkness, introducing more risk.

Sixty per cent of people in a recent survey said they’d had a workplace romance.Credit: Karen Hardy

These attempts are understandable. Love at work creates complexity that most leaders just don’t want to deal with. Leaders just want the team to do a good job. As Mr Turnbull said at the time: “we are paying you to go to Canberra to work and run the country. We’re not paying you to … have love affairs with your staff.”

All valid. But leaders, we must bow to the inevitable: 60 per cent of respondents in a recent survey say that they have had a relationship at work, 43 per cent said they married someone they met at work, and nearly half said they know someone who’s done the same thing.

Leaders respond in all kinds of damaging ways: ignoring it, joking about it, punishing it. It’s all driven by unconscious fear, of course. Bosses mostly don’t know how to handle the situation and are fearful of the consequences of getting it wrong. You won’t hear them say that though. You’ll just see them trying to convince themselves they’re still in control. Perfectly understandable.

And bad for business.

Control is a delusion, so act accordingly. The most powerful leaders thrive in the kind of ambiguity workplace relationships create and embrace it.

Once you’ve chosen the right, capable team, the single biggest driver of business performance is the team’s level of psychological safety. When psychological safety is high, it’s because difficult things are dealt with: the leader is brave, clear and fair.

In these environments, there’s very little speculation: people trust that the leader will have a direct conversation. They also trust that the leader will hear them before making a judgement.

When any tricky situation in a business – including a workplace romance – is ignored, ridiculed or banned, psychological safety reduces. In the absence of surfacing the issue, gossip fills the gap.

Employee imaginings about favouritism and leaked confidentialities rise. Whatever you don’t deal with grows bigger than it needs to. Distraction rises, engagement reduces. Your people ask each other, “Why doesn’t the boss deal with this properly?”

Often, the two people involved feel shame and hate having to be furtive (indeed in the same survey, 52 per cent of people who had a relationship at work say they were treated differently by co-workers).

Leaders, control is a delusion, so act accordingly. The most powerful leaders thrive in the kind of ambiguity workplace relationships create and embrace it. This doesn’t have to be a big deal.

Two colleagues have affection for each other, and it’s been going on a while. There’s no power imbalance nor inappropriateness. So bring it into the light.

Have a conversation with each party, separately. Lead with compassion and set clear boundaries: you wish them all the best, and you want to understand how they are managing their personal relationship at work. Then listen.

Listen to understand, not to respond. They may have already thought about it, in which case you’ll walk away relieved. If they haven’t, you can set clear boundaries on professionalism and eliminate all doubt.

Either way, you will be the leader who has fronted the issue and dealt with it bravely, fairly and clearly. Your people will see you do it. In the most appropriate way, they’ll fall in love with you. And it’s that kind of leadership that drives performance.

Margot Faraci is a global leadership expert with two decades of experience in the corporate world.

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