The fun lenient manager is great until things go wrong. People start abusing the leeway and showing up late, not following standards, and generally getting away with whatever they can. It turns into a problem.

Strict but fair is much better. Ideally they're someone you're comfortable around and won't put rules above actual good sense and humanitarianism. And they model all the behaviors they expect in others. That's what I actually want in a leader.

Strict and fair. I didn’t come here to make friends, I came here to work. I want my SM to enforce standards, create a safe environment, and pay me. In my experience, the “friend” manager tends to pick favorites, create a toxic work environment, and allow shit partners to run the store while the partners that actually work get shunned and eventually quit. If I want friends, I’ll go to a bar.

As long as they are consistent with their enforcement, I don’t care how strict they are. Most of Starbucks policies aren’t really “bad” or problematic, they just frequently have inconsistent enforcement stemming in favoritism and bias. Being consistent and following policy as it’s written? Fine by me

As someone who watched a store go down due to the manager being the latter, I definitely agree the former being better. Too much drama happens when your manager is your “friend.” It makes it impossible to keep things to standard and when you’re one of only a couple SSVs trying to maintain this, you’re seen as the “bad guy.”

I would say firm is better if you have to pick between the two—

However, best of all, is the person who can do both. Be firm when needed, and friendly when needed.

My manager is the best of both worlds.

I like manger can be friend sometimes but also can be strict when they need be. And still respected. That how my current manger is. And it is amazing cause he knows how have fun but he can also be strict and get shit done. Always is fair

I’ve seen fun and lenient managers work well because they just happened to have a fully competent team who cared a lot about their jobs. But how often does that happen? Just about never.

Strict but fair is the way to go. You can also still be fun and down to earth but strict simultaneously.

Strict but fair 100%. I had a manager who was everyone's friend and she was a lot of fun, till people realized they could take advantage of that, and completely half ass shit cause our manager let then get away with it, despite myself and all the other shifts pointing out the same issues with the same people over and over

There's a reason that every closing shift at that store left (including me, I wait tables now) not that long after that manager was brought in

Im on my asm journey and I feel like I’m strict and but fair but this store I’m at rn is so used to the “friend” manager that some baristas don’t like that I enforce rules and standards and think I’m “mean” but the majority are nice and praise me for getting stuff done. Idk sometime I lose faith and think I should just do the shitty friend approach but posts like this remind me I’m doing good and it’s a job, not a playground

Strict but fair with a healthy dose of common sense.
The lax managers either run a shit show or they do everything themselves, get burned out after 6 months and your store gets thrown into chaos.

Manager with no backbone

My fun lenient manager has made me work with someone that threatened me on the floor and insists I must’ve “misheard” the person. She doesn’t write anyone up ever. For chronically being late, for no call no shows, for stealing merchandise, nothing. A partner that she really likes told me she encouraged him to file a complaint for racism against a SSV in the store (that hasn’t behaved in an inappropriate way at all) so that it would look like that SSV was unfairly targeting that person if they asked her to hold him accountable. Talking to her feels like being the oldest child the inappropriate mom confides in.

My previous store manager was strict but fair and I honestly miss her so much. She was able to make it clear she cared about me as a person and a partner, without crossing boundaries or trying too hard to be my friend.

I would’ve stayed a lot longer with the company if I was still under the later and not the former. My last day was today and I can’t wait to work for a manager with appropriate boundaries again

The partners who disagree are doing things wrong and they like getting away with it. That’s the difference