I’m generally in agreement with this. As this type of caution goes, some individuals could have enough experience and skill to know when they could relax on par

I’m generally in agreement with this. As this type of caution goes, some individuals could have enough experience and skill to know when they could relax on part of this, but for an inexperienced manager, not keeping distance is a giant potential pitfall. One thing the post doesn’t exactly mention but is a very strong reason to be careful befriending your reports: favoritism. In my experience on data science and machine learning teams, it’s often the case that there are more and less glamorous work assignments on the team, and if you’re befriending of someone means they start to avoid all the undesirable work, you’ll end up damaging team chemistry and churning out good but unrewarded team members.