I hired a close friend as a direct report. It worked well, because we could both compartmentalize the different relationships at difficult moments, but could le

I hired a close friend as a direct report. It worked well, because we could both compartmentalize the different relationships at difficult moments, but could leverage the trust and ease of communication granted by a long relationship most of the time. A decade passed and same guy is a direct report again. So far, it’s going well again. I’ve been fortunate to never face a round of budget cuts while a close friend was reporting to me. That would be difficult to navigate, regardless of the outcome.