1 / 13

The High Cost of Supervisory Inaction

The High Cost of Supervisory Inaction . C. W. Von Bergen Southeastern Oklahoma State University Durant, OK. A Common Assumption … . “doing nothing will have no effect on performance” — Hellriegel & Slocum (2007 , p. 103). What Do T hese I ndividuals H ave I n C ommon?.

cid
Download Presentation

The High Cost of Supervisory Inaction

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. The High Cost of Supervisory Inaction C. W. Von Bergen Southeastern Oklahoma State University Durant, OK

  2. A Common Assumption … “doing nothing will have no effect on performance” —Hellriegel& Slocum (2007, p. 103)

  3. What Do These Individuals Have In Common? • Pope John Paul II • Coach Joe Paterno • Major Nidal Hassan

  4. Doing Nothing Does Something • Demotivates good performers • Decreasesthe probability of future desiredbehavior • Encourages poor workers • Opens the door for increased levels of undesired performance

  5. Management Nonresponse to Desirable Employee Performance • Nonreinforced subordinate good performance leads to negative subordinate affective and behavioral responses • Dissatisfaction • Performance decrement • Extinction may unintentionally occur • “Just ignore it, and it’ll go away” • Analogy: houseplants that do not get watered wither away

  6. Supervisory Inaction to Desirable Employee Performance: Why??? • Subordinates will see them as weak if they use too much R+ • Complimenting someone who may have to be fired or demoted in the future could backfire • People don’t need R+ for “doing the job they are paid to do” • The supervisor does not read people well enough to understand what is reinforcing to each specific individual

  7. Great Leaders and Organizations • Provide occasions to acknowledge, recognize, and reward meaningful accomplishments, thus creating a culture where progress and appreciation prevail. • Great organizations create greater success by praising and celebrating good performance, that is, by positive reinforcement.

  8. Management Nonresponse to Undesirable Employee Performance • Qui tacetconsentirevidetur. • Wrongdoing is often self-rewarding to a worker and involves an activity the person already finds satisfying so the behavior often continues • Creates disillusionment from the very people the business relies most upon—those who consistently produce good results. • Ignoring undesirable behavior generally tends to maintain or increase ineffective and inefficient actions; leads to more serious actions

  9. Supervisory Inaction to UndesirableEmployee Performance: Why??? • don’t want to rock the boat, fearing that poor performers will retaliate with even worse performance • they dislike confrontation and possibly they are unassertive • fear hurting employee feelings or potential workplace violence • have internalized the dictums of “don’t be judgmental” and “don’t say anything at all if you can’t say something nice”

  10. Functional Effects of Negative Feedback • Employees generally feel better about their supervisor, coworkers, and opportunities for advancement when their leaders hold employees accountable for poor performance. • Bad apples spoil the barrel (Felps, Mitchell, &Byington, 2006)

  11. In Conclusion … • Managers seldom recognize the impact of their own failure to act on their subordinates • Many performance issues are created not only by what supervisors do but also by what they don’t do And • DOING NOTHING DOES SOMETHING

  12. THERE IS A HIGH COST OFSUPERVISORY INACTION

  13. … or am I making Much Ado About NOTHING?

More Related