Values › Community › Friendship
Core value · Community family
Friendship
Close bonds, freely chosen
Also covers Comradeship
What does friendship mean as a core value?
Friendship as a core value means investing in the close bonds you’ve chosen, keeping them going over years and treating them as seriously as family or work.
Friends get first call on your diary. The people you’ve chosen, and who’ve chosen you, sit alongside family and work in the order of what matters. You prize the freedom of it: nobody has to be there, and they are. You invest in that comradeship over years, keep up with old friends when life scatters you, and feel a real loss when a friendship fades through neglect.
What does friendship look like in practice?
- You put the annual weekend with old friends in the diary before anything else.
- You send a message on the day of a friend’s hard anniversary, as well as their birthday.
- You drive across the county when a friend’s crisis needs someone in the room.
- You tell a friend a difficult truth because you trust the friendship to survive it.
- You make friends at work and keep them after one of you leaves.
When is friendship overplayed?
Friendship can pull hard against fairness. You cover for a friend’s poor work, hire or promote someone because you like them, or expect the same unquestioning backing in return. Friends can also take up time that your partner, children or health need. The mature form keeps people close and leaves room for honesty, other commitments and, sometimes, growing apart with good grace. Before backing a friend at work, you could ask whether you’d make the same call for someone you didn’t like.
Often confused with
Friendship vs Loyalty
Loyalty is standing by people and commitments. Friendship is the chosen bond itself, and loyalty is one of the things that keeps it going.
Friendship vs Relationships
Relationships covers all your important bonds, including family and partners. Friendship is specifically the close bonds you choose, with no obligation holding them in place.
Friendship vs Connection
Connection can be a single meaningful moment with anyone. Friendship is built over time with particular people who keep choosing each other.
Questions to sit with
- Which friendship have you let fade without really meaning to, and what would it take to revive it?
- When has being a good friend pulled against being fair to someone else?
- Who would call you first in a crisis, and when did you last let them know that matters?
More values in Community
Being part of something bigger than yourself.
About the author
Matt Rutherford is a Career and Leadership Coach. The Values Finder is the same exercise he uses with his coaching clients. He also writes Stuff that MattRs, a weekly newsletter with practical ideas to help you think clearer and work better.
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