As I’ve gotten senior and now a partner. My approach/style with juniors has been to be their friend (it’s how seniors were/are to me in my career and thought it was a great approach bc it worked well with me and I also wanted to work my hardest and do my best for my friends). However I’m running into a pattern of more junior folks I work with that don’t work that hard/careless/ delay work for me/and let things slide since we have a personal relationship. Any advice on how to navigate this?

In my experience, different people respond to different management styles. The friendship approach worked on you, but doesn't appear to be working for your subordinates. I think you need to change your approach and find something else that works.

Remind them - I am your friend, but I am first your boss. Don’t get the two confused.

Do you give them deadlines when you assign work? You can also give background on why the deadline is important. I find that this works best so they can still have autonomy while meeting expectations

Try to compartmentalize and don’t be afraid to have tough conversations. Being friends and friendly are not the same thing. But if their work is not up to par, friendship isn’t going to help you and you’ll probably have to have a stern professional conversation.

FWIW, that shouldn’t prohibit a friend/friendly relationship but it depends on the junior. Is there a chance they are just taking advantage of your relationship? From my personal experience, I have one boss I also consider a friend. We work closely together and I tend to prioritize work for them (within reason). But if I screw something up I fully expect to have difficult professional conversations.

FWIW, I am having similar problems with our associates and I haven’t taken the same approach as you. I’m certainly friendly and we’ll chat about things other than work, but none of us would consider the other as a friend. I share this because the issues you’re seeing with the associates may not necessarily have to do with you. It’s worth asking yourself if there’s a different approach you should take but there might be more to it.

Following because I do this too.

I was like this but have changed my tone in the past year or two. Some associates respond very well to this style others take advantage. I start off friend management style baseline, and those that I can see are putting in the effort, I maintain that. For others I’ve found some people need very direct (not mean, just straightforward) communication about expectations and someone to hold them to task. I don’t like managing this way, but I’ve found a lot of junior associates need it early in their career and you can sit back more when expectations start to click more for them.

I personally respond best to this approach because I’ve come from very toxic work environments. So if a partner felt the way you do about me, I would want them to talk to me about it. Point out any issues as they arise in a matter of fact tone. Set the expectation. I would like to be able to have open conversations because I value the opinions of partners like this so much more.