I have a role that sometimes involves me advising people on their management skills. Every time I have had to look into a situation where somebody has been acc

I have a role that sometimes involves me advising people on their management skills. Every time I have had to look into a situation where somebody has been accused of inappropriate behavior I find that nothing grey has happened at all, in fact the manager has been stupid. The manager has started texting at weekends, turning up at their house uninvited, plying them with alcohol, commenting on their Facebook etc, right up to 'she offered, and never look a gift-horse in the mouth'. I think these are REALLY easy boundaries not to cross. > I can say from one, personally impactful experience... Thank you for sharing, this is a touching story and I'm sure is not an uncommon one with academics. Mentoring must be one of the most rewarding parts of the job. A mentor finding that their feelings for a mentee are strong, or finding the mentee feels strongly for them is going to happen sometimes. I'm sure some heterosexual advisors have very strong feelings for their same-sex mentee's which are above the normal boss/colleague dynamic. Managing it well is going to be very difficult and take some skill, if you are going to continue to work together. Sometimes the difficult choice is going to be that you lose your mentee, but retain the moral high ground. If however you end up sleeping together, then you have crossed my line, I'm afraid. If you simply have to be together then you need to restructure your professional life so you are not their boss any more. >There's also things like students and advisors who are close and end up having sex at a conference when they are both completely intoxicated and both regret it later. And 100% this is misconduct on behalf on the advisor. 100% it is their fault. > ideally, you should just keep work relationships impersonal That is not what I said. I said to keep some distance, not to be a robot.