Until recently, one of the basic tenets of leadership was to keep your distance from team members, their direct reports and even other leaders. The idea was to never get too close, or it would reduce your effectiveness as a leader.

This philosophy has been reinforced through innumerable catchphrases and nuggets of well-intentioned advice:

• “Leave your feelings at the door when you come to work …”
• “Never let them see you sweat …”
• “Keep your emotional distance from team members, or they will see you as weak and won’t respect you.”

While some of these axioms are more colorful than others, the message remained the same: “Stay tucked comfortably inside the ivory tower, or else people will begin to think you’re one of them.”

But let’s face it: those types of philosophies reflected archaic leadership methods and practices that didn’t work well then and are even less effective today. That’s why today’s most effective leaders and executives incorporate an approach known as “professional intimacy” into their management repertoire. It’s a term you may have heard, but for the uninitiated, let’s define exactly what it is — and what it isn’t.

Professional intimacy (also called corporate intimacy) describes a concept under the larger umbrella of Authentic Leadership.¹ According to a recent article on Indeed.com,² “Authentic leadership is one leadership style that emphasizes transparency, genuineness and honesty. Authentic leaders build genuine relationships with team members by inspiring trust and fostering a positive work environment.”

Professional intimacy, then, is an essential ingredient in the Authentic Leadership recipe that helps make it work the way it was intended.

In a professional context, intimacy should be viewed as close familiarity. It is NOT a romantic or erotic relationship that originates in the workplace. Nor does it refer to the common misunderstanding that genuine closeness automatically develops when individuals share secrets.

At its core, professional intimacy describes the process of letting the people with whom you work closely get to know “the real you” and vice versa. What’s more, it is meant to be used with no regard for a person’s title, position or responsibilities; the “real you” should be on display for everyone to see.

Bountiful Benefits

What is the outcome of all this newfound closeness and openness? According to an article in Psychology Today,³ professional intimacy holds the key to myriad corporate gains, including:

• Enhanced individual and team performance
• More effective senior leadership
• Reduced stress
• Increased happiness and fulfillment
• Improved communication by removing defensiveness
• Enhanced creativity
• A reduction in counterproductive “groupthink”

Given this laundry list of potential benefits, it’s no wonder more companies are viewing professional intimacy with much greater applicability. I’ve been personally involved with many companies aiming to make the transformation to a leadership structure that incorporated this approach. One example comes to mind that illustrates how professional intimacy can highlight the behavioral stumbling blocks that plague many people in the corporate environment — and how it can be instrumental in addressing and solving them.

I met a senior leader who was quite proficient at their job but closed off from sharing openly about themselves with team members. This came to light in team-building work, ongoing senior leadership team (SLT) meetings and, subsequently, in meetings with tangential team members.

Other members of the team also experienced a behavioral pulling back — or shutting down — from this leader. This was especially evident during emotionally intense work, such as assignments where significant financial stakes were in play.

As a coach working with several SLT members, I noticed it and wondered why the leader operated this way, almost as if they were reveling in their introversion.

I implored the CEO and other SLT members to ask this leader questions that would encourage opening up after demonstrating it was safe to do so. It was necessary to look below the surface of the behavior (pulling back) to gain an understanding of why they learned to operate this way, to uproot it and, ultimately, change it.

The key that made this possible was leaning into this particular leader with the safe inquiry: “I noticed a pulling back when XYZ happened. Where does that originate?”

Turns out, this leader’s mother was on food stamps and welfare when he was younger. He experienced shame and embarrassment from it and subconsciously vowed to do anything and everything to avert it in the future. Due to being poor, he was also bullied in middle school, so he viewed being authentically open about himself as a way that others could exploit what he considered to be a weakness and hurt him. This insight proved extremely valuable in helping this leader break down psychological walls and begin to feel more comfortable opening up to professional colleagues.