Writing About Someone Who Matters

There’s a strange kind of pressure that sneaks up on you when you sit down to write a professional recommendation for someone who is no longer “just” your colleague, but something more. A person who has crossed that quiet threshold from coworker to friend. Someone whose name no longer sits in your inbox, but in your phone, your weekend plans, and your sense of gratitude for having shared not just tasks, but time. Suddenly, you find yourself navigating a very specific type of writer’s block. It’s not that you don’t know what to say - it’s that you know too much, and now you have to distill it into something LinkedIn considers “professional.”

The truth is, the shift from colleague to friend doesn’t happen in one dramatic moment. It happens gradually—between shared sighs over delayed reports, silent support in stressful meetings, inside jokes that form during coffee breaks, and the small, unglamorous ways people show up for each other day after day. And then, one day, you realize you’re not just recommending someone for their skills or achievements; you’re trying to translate something much deeper. You’re trying to put into words what it’s like to trust someone—not just with work, but with your time, your thoughts, your bad days, your real self.

So how do you stay objective? You don’t, entirely. And maybe you shouldn’t. Because the best recommendations aren’t the cold, bullet-pointed lists of “delivers results” and “cross-functional communication.” The best ones are the ones that give a full, honest picture—where the person being recommended isn’t just impressive, but known. When you’ve worked alongside someone long enough and closely enough to call them a friend, your perspective isn’t compromised—it’s richer. You’ve seen how they respond when things go wrong, how they celebrate others, how they handle pressure, and how they remain kind when they don’t have to be. That’s not bias. That’s evidence.

Of course, you still have to do the job properly. You talk about their work, their skills, their ability to manage chaos without making it everyone else’s problem. You describe the results they delivered, the projects they carried, the deadlines they danced with. But layered between the lines, you let a bit of the warmth show. Maybe you include the story about how they once ran a workshop while barely recovered from a flu, using a whiteboard marker with more confidence than actual ink. Maybe you mention the time they stayed late—not because they had to, but because someone else needed the support. You throw in a well-placed joke, not because it’s funny, but because it’s true. And in doing so, you’re not diluting the recommendation—you’re making it human.

And that’s the thing. We often treat friendship at work as this tricky, almost dangerous territory, like it somehow invalidates professionalism. But the older I get, the more I believe the opposite. If I can’t recommend the people I trust most deeply, the ones I’ve seen at both their most brilliant and most burned out—then who am I recommending, really? If someone has earned both my respect and my friendship, that’s not a conflict of interest. That’s the strongest endorsement I can give.

So yes, recommending a friend might feel like walking a tightrope between the personal and the professional. But if you walk it with honesty, specificity, and a little self-awareness, it becomes less of a tightrope and more of a bridge. A way to honor someone not just for what they do, but for who they are—and for the impact they’ve had on your work, your team, and yes, even your life.

And if they’re reading it? Well, they’ll probably text you with something snarky like, “Wow, emotional much?” But they’ll know. They’ll know that what you wrote wasn’t just about their next job—it was about the mark they left behind.