How do I push this through so that the relationship with my team ends up stronger than before?

When you move from team member to manager, the first feeling is usually pride: you made it. Then reality catches up. Management isn't only about shaping things — it also means pushing through unpopular decisions, sometimes against the will of people who were colleagues a moment ago.

And that is exactly where a fallacy lies in wait. It quickly starts to feel as though you could use the relationships you built as a colleague to get those decisions through more easily — as leverage, so to speak. I realised early on that this doesn't work in the long run.

Instead, you have to find a way to push through every decision — however unpopular it may be — so that the relationship with the team is stronger afterwards than it was before. Which is why, regardless of whether what you have to push through is good or bad for the team, you should always ask yourself the same question: how do I push this through so that the relationship with my team ends up stronger than before?

Every decision is an entry in the account

I picture every relationship as an account. A relationship account. Every action — a conversation, a decision, an escalation — is an entry in that account. Either I pay in, or I withdraw.

What matters, though, isn't the substance of the matter itself but the manner in which it is handled. The same uncomfortable decision can be delivered harshly and from above and drain the account — or conveyed with respect and clarity and pay into it. The substance stays the same. The manner decides the relationship.

Hard on the matter, kind to the people

The principle that matters most to me: be hard and consistent on the matter, stay friendly towards the people. Go soft on the matter just to stay nice and you will lose the team's respect. Go hard in your manner to force the matter through and you will lose their trust. Both cost you something — just in different currencies.

The craft lies in keeping those two levels cleanly apart. The decision itself may well be immovable. How I treat the person before, during and after is an entirely separate question — and that is what decides the entry.

Clarity before harmony

It is tempting to soften or water down an uncomfortable decision to preserve harmony in the moment. It feels caring — and mostly it isn't. Vagueness creates room for interpretation and room for conflict. Uncomfortable clarity always pays more into the relationship account over time than comfortable vagueness.

Clear accounts make good friends. Clear expectations, clear feedback, clear consequences are not a threat to a good relationship — they are its precondition. What really damages relationships is rarely the hard message. It is the tone. Because the tone makes the music.

Trust is not a one-way street

Whether pushing something through reads as leadership or as the naked use of power depends largely on how much trust is already there. A team that senses their leader genuinely wants what is best for them — not just for the numbers, not just for their own ego — will forgive uncomfortable decisions too. A team without that trust will experience every decision as an intrusion, however well meant.

But it runs both ways. Before I can expect trust from my team, I have to be willing to extend some myself — responsibility, decisions, mistakes included. Control every step instead and you send exactly the opposite message: I don't trust you. And that comes back to you.

Trust doesn't come from a single good decision but from patterns over time: explaining instead of ordering, staying honest even when it is uncomfortable, and — perhaps most importantly — admitting it when a decision you pushed through turns out to have been wrong.

Show the reason, not just the decision

Some things simply have to be done, even when they hurt. The difference between “this is how we do it now” and “this is how we do it now, and here is why” is often the difference between a withdrawal and a deposit — that is radical transparency. And part of that is being honest when there is no good reason: sometimes a decision simply makes no sense in the moment because the context is missing. Even then it is better to say so openly than to invent a rationale.

The real question, before the decision

Before the next uncomfortable decision comes around, it is worth pausing and asking yourself honestly: how do I push this through so that the relationship with my team ends up stronger than before?

That question usually doesn't change what gets decided. But it changes how it happens — and that is precisely the difference between a leader people trust and one they merely comply with.