Given how much of our adult lives we devote to our work, it’s only natural to build close friendships with the colleagues we spend hours with each week. This kind of workplace connection is extremely common, and existing research even confirms it boosts both long-term career success and personal happiness. But what do you do when your close office friend starts underperforming, dragging down your entire team, creating unnecessary workflow inefficiencies, or leaving you to pick up a pile of extra work they’ve left undone? How do you address the problem—and is it even your place to bring it up at all? Navigating this situation is undeniably a delicate balancing act, but mental health and career experts have shared actionable guidance for handling these potentially awkward conversations with your closest work friend.
Leanna Stockard, a licensed therapist at LifeStance Health — one of the largest mental healthcare providers across the United States — notes that when a colleague becomes more of a personal friend than just a coworker, discussing poor work performance becomes far more uncomfortable than it would be with an ordinary teammate. “Because we spend so much of our time at work, the line between personal connection and professional relationship can get surprisingly blurry,” she explains. “When someone feels more like a friend than just a person you work with, you feel a much stronger sense of loyalty to them than you would to a regular colleague.”
This loyalty makes it totally understandable that you’d hesitate to speak up: if you notice your friend’s work is slipping, you likely don’t want to see them get in trouble, and you may even feel inclined to step in and cover their unfinished work. But Stockard argues that this well-meaning choice is ultimately a mistake. “If you decide to pick up their slack, you’re essentially enabling their unproductive behavior,” she explains. “It sends a message to your friend that they don’t have to follow through on their own professional responsibilities, because you will always end up doing the work for them.”
Deciding whether to raise your concerns to your friend (or to leadership) is ultimately a personal call, says Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist with practices based in both New York City and Washington, D.C. But if you’ve already had a direct conversation with your friend and see no change in their performance, it may be time to escalate the issue to management — because your core responsibility is to your entire team and organization, not just your personal friendship, he notes.
If you do escalate, Alpert emphasizes it’s critical to approach the situation professionally. “Document specific examples of poor performance, and inform your supervisor without framing the issue as a personal complaint,” he says. “Stick to the facts and focus on how the underperformance is impacting the whole team. This prevents resentment from building on your end and puts the issue where it belongs — in the hands of management who can address it formally.”
Alpert also adds that workplace friendship adds a unique layer of emotional complexity to this situation that doesn’t exist with ordinary colleagues. “We might be afraid of damaging the relationship, being seen as overly critical, or creating tension in what’s otherwise an enjoyable workplace dynamic,” he says. Friendships also come with an implicit expectation of loyalty and leniency, which directly clashes with the need for clear accountability in any professional setting.
