Lisa Barone over at the Bruce Clay blog recently posted about why “Your Boss is not your Friend“. She talked about why you shouldn’t connect with your boss, and how you should avoid it - “deny, deny, deny”. I’m going to disagree with her, and explain why you should at least accept that LinkedIn request from your boss…

LinkedIn is a much more professional social site, that allows professionals to link up and recommend each other (I’ll have a more comprehensive overview up on RBDRodeo later this week). When you link with your boss, you can see all of their connections (unless they’re sneaky, and have hidden them). Whenever your boss adds a new connection, there’s a notification that goes up on your LinkedIn page to let you know. Simply clicking on that link allows you to see who your boss is linking with… it can give you an idea of future strategic partnerships, new investors, prospective employees, recruiters, etc. So by friending your boss, you can get somewhat of an insight into what’s happening at your company. Yes, you’ve got to be careful who you link to as well, but in my experience LinkedIn is a nice spying corporate information resource. Heck, you can always accept your bosses friend request, then remove them… there’s no notification, and they may not notice…