In the hybrid work context, supervisors often lack the motivation and energy to build friendships with employees due to geographical location, power, and status. This results in a common phenomenon where employees overestimate the level of friendship with their supervisors. Drawing on the perspective of relational balance, our study investigates how employees’ overestimation of their friendship with supervisors influences their task performance, specifically focusing on relationships involving two key social agents at work: supervisors and peers. A field survey study with 585 employees and 109 leaders across 95 teams shows that from a dyadic relational balance perspective, even when employees perceive relatively higher friendship with their supervisors compared to coworkers, those who overestimate their friendship with supervisors tend to reduce their investment in dyadic work relationships intentionally (LMX). This diminished investment subsequently undermines their task performance. From a triadic relational balance perspective, relative friendship with supervisors weakens the positive relationship between employees’ friendship overestimation and TMX, which in turn reduces the focal employee’s task performance. This study advances the literature on workplace friendships and dyadic perceptual asymmetry by integrating the relational balance perspective. It further highlights the compensatory and substitutive pathways between supervisors and peers.
