Navigating peer relationships as you climb the ladder

Right after I graduated from law school, I started working at a firm. There were seven of us from all over the country; we worked long hours and were inseparable outside of work. Bound by our starting rank and modest budget, we ate lunch together every day, often at the Taco Bell across the street. After work we commiserated at the local dive bar.

Underlying these relationships was a darker reality. We knew that after 10 weeks only three or four of us would be offered jobs. That’s just how it worked. We were colleagues—and competitors.

These types of stressful situations are common in peer work relationships and grow exponentially in risk and complexity as you approach the C-suite. They are both a conundrum and a paradox. The same people you need to collaborate with to get your work done and influence your job satisfaction and joy are also your competitors in a game of survived.

The fact is that the workplace is one of the few environments in which we find ourselves forced in relationships. We must work together amicably and effectively to achieve organizational goals. And if we are ambitious or stay in an organization long enough, eventually most colleagues become our bosses or subordinates.

So how can we effectively navigate these potentially confusing—and critically important—relationships? Here are three strategies based on my experience as an executive and now as a coach supporting executive clients.

Don’t expect friendship.

A few years ago, a colleague and I were pursuing different SVP roles in the same department. I considered her a friend. We had eaten lunch together for years, shared parenting issues, been publicly lauded as a top 20 performer at the company the previous year, and were in a major reorganization with a new C-suite boss.

I hadn’t naturally warmed to our new boss, but my colleague had clearly become visibly favored. On the way to yoga class, looking for guidance, I confided, “I’m having a hard time building a relationship with our new boss.” She smiled broadly, “I don’t know why; I think she’s great!” and made it clear that the conversation was over and not to be repeated. This exchange and subsequent interactions showed that she was not going to risk her new status to help me. That was the end of the working friendship and after waiting a year I left for an executive role at another company.

While it’s important to establish a cordial working relationship, there’s a limit to how healthy an emotional connection can be as you climb the corporate ladder. Keep it friendly (like remembering the name of their partner or children), but maintain boundaries. Excessive sharing of personal information (such as religious or political beliefs) can cause relationship conflict, leading to awkwardness and ineffective work performance. Don’t see work as a place to satisfy your basic emotional needs; invest in relationships and organizations that interest you outside of your company.

Steer sideways.

When considering you for top management positions, leaders will go to your colleagues and ask for their opinion. Often this is an informal dialogue that is not usually recognized as part of the formal performance review process. Some organizations, most famously Amazon, have even changed their performance model to give more credit to partner feedback.

But with our peers, we don’t always “make it” or perform as well as we might with our boss or direct reports. Therefore, our peers are the group most likely to experience, observe and know our weaknesses. “Your peers read you best—and are your harshest critics because they’re at your level,” John Horton, an organizational psychologist, told me. Through his years of experience conducting workplace assessments, he has discovered that we are most likely to exhibit derailing leadership behavior in front of our colleagues.

This is consistent with my own experience conducting 360 reviews for clients. For example, one of my clients—despite her objectively top sales numbers—was blocked from an executive role because of negative feedback from peers absorbed two levels up on the executive leadership team. It took extensive interviews with feedback, six months of training, and developing a perception management strategy to undo the damage, and she finally got the promotion she deserved.

To understand your influence on your peers, ask them. Take regular time to check in and understand how you and your team’s actions are impacting the accomplishments of theirs aims. Find common ground to support them and activate the norm of reciprocity – the concept that people help those who help them. Making peer inquiry a routine habit can surface opportunities and problems early on, giving you a chance to solidify the relationship and correct course if necessary.

Sometimes simply affirming others works. One of my clients was struggling with a key partner who barely acknowledged it. Working together, we agreed that he would find something of merit that this colleague brought up in each CEO meeting and visibly agree—through comment or body language. After a few months, a friend of his age invited him for coffee to get to know him better, and this started a working relationship.

Hone your political skills.

Peers serve critical information purposes—they often possess valuable knowledge that can alert you to what’s happening in the organization and why.

But as Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Stanford University professor and noted authority on organizational power, told me, peer relationships are “a mixed-motive game.” Put bluntly, “the best, most politically effective peers will be able to successfully hide their true agendas and actions. So the first thing one should do with one’s peers is, as much as possible, understand what they are doing,” he says.

When I served on the executive team at a company, my colleague who was our CEO was always tight-lipped about everything, sharing only what was absolutely necessary with her colleagues about her business plans. You never knew what she was up to or if she really supported your initiatives. However, she was closely associated with our president and made sure his goals were met. It paid off—when he suddenly left to become CEO of a bigger, more prestigious company, he took her with him to run HR.

To make sure you don’t get left behind, take an honest look at the behaviors that are rewarded in your organization. Find out who got promoted and why. Be strategic and create partnerships with supportive colleagues, finding common ground to advance mutually beneficial programs. In a culture of sharp elbows, you may need to be more cautious.

It’s also helpful to manage your emotions and cultivate a poker face. According to Pfeffer, “getting by, let alone succeeding, in the world often requires a great deal of inauthenticity and self-regulation.” When you approach the upper levels of an organization, you often can’t indulge emotions like irritation, anger, or fatigue without risk affecting morale, being misinterpreted or damaging relationships.

Executive management relies heavily, albeit informally, on your colleagues’ perceptions of you for promotion opportunities – whether they are honest and accurate or not. Aspiring professionals will heed the strategies shared above for navigating these complex relationships as they rise to the C-suite.