A Problem with Top Performers Becoming Managers

Why It’s Important to Thank Helpful Coworkers

By Daniel Butcher

Even top performers can get into a funk a work, and workers who usually are willing to help coworkers can stop collaborating. Beyond standard strategies such as promotions and raises, cultivating a collaborative culture that gives credit where credit is due is crucial for motivating such talented, helpful employees.

Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp of Texas Christian University, who coauthored an Academy of Management Review article on how “organizational citizenship behavior” changes over time with Jessica Methot of Rutgers University, David Lepak of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Wendy Boswell of Texas A&M University, said that people continuously craft identity narratives to tell evolving stories about themselves.

“The research on organizational citizenship behavior took this approach of ‘People either help colleagues or they don’t,’ not really viewing a longer-term perspective or asking questions such as, ‘What happens if I help all the time and then I get burnt out?’ or ‘What if something happens at work and changes my identity to where I help colleagues more or less often?’” Shipp said.

“We looked at the ways in which some different situations or life cues could change your trajectory of helping over time, and why,” she said. “In terms of practical takeaways, talk to people about their identities and why they help at work and what’s meaningful to them—but also assume that these will change, so keep those conversations going.

“If somebody is one of your top performers today, don’t assume that that would stick.”

There could be ebbs and flows and different events that could—and likely will—impact performance and citizenship behavior.

“When you take that temporal lens, you start to really ask a lot of different questions about, ‘When do people help? How does it change? Is that temporary or permanent?’ etc.,” Shipp said.

“This allows leaders to explore ways to boost the morale of top performers and helpers and encourage them to remain at the organization, continue performing well, and continue to help others, even when things change over time,” she said.

A sample of Shipp’sAOM research findings:

• Subjective Time: What It Is and Why It Matters at Work
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

RTO Has a Steep Learning Curve for Young Workers

By Daniel Butcher

Many young employees, some of whom graduated during the COVID-19 pandemic or took on a fully remote role after graduation, never experienced integrating with—and thriving in—an office culture. Pandemic or no, young professionals often experience a learning curve in transitioning to becoming a professional. They have to figure out how to bond with fellow employees, make a good impression on management, and act professionally in an office.

Academy of Management Scholar Jessica Methot of Rutgers University and the University of Exeter said that many early-career workers haven’t been fully socialized into their employer’s culture. The quality of organizations’ onboarding procedures varies widely.

“One of the concerns that we’ve been hearing a lot from newer employees is they weren’t onboarded effectively,” Methot said. “They’re brought into a new role, but they don’t get a chance to meet the team, develop a rapport with their boss, or form relationships with this team to build trust and learn how to collaborate effectively with them.

“Maybe they worked remotely when they were hired into the organization, and then—all of a sudden—they’re brought back to the workspace, and now they have to reevaluate how they were interacting with these individuals and almost create new relationships with them,” she said. “The pandemic created this disruption to our understanding of how to interact, and so it calls into question what types of information do recent hires require?

“How are we socializing these new employees to help them navigate the social norms and political landscape of the organization? How do they build a relationship with their supervisor or their direct reports when they never meet in person, and then, what does that look like if a group of them is required to come back to the office? It’s really disruptive.”

A sample of Methot’s AOM research findings:

• Overlooked Benefits of Office Chit-Chat
• Paths to Retaining Employees Who Go the Extra Mile

Why Email Jokes Fail

By Daniel Butcher

Most people seem confident in their ability to get their point across in emails. Few realize that writing an email is actually a minefield, and common errors can blow up in the sender’s face.

Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron of Georgia State University said it’s important to remember your audience, especially if you’re trying to be funny or ironic. She published a research article on this topic in Academy of Management Review.

“I would hope that the people who I communicate with the most know I’m a sarcastic person; I joke around a lot, but I still try to make sure that there’s little ways indicating that,” Byron said. “If I am joking around, I’ll try to make sure they know; I might even just say, ‘Of course, I’m just joking,’ or I’ll add a smiley face or another emoji just to make sure that people know that I’m joking it or being sarcastic.

Including humor, irony, or sarcasm in an email can be risky, especially for work-related messages. Depending on the stakes and how well you know the recipient, it may not be worth the risk of being misunderstood and potentially offending that person.

“If you don’t know a person really well and you’re sending them an email, then usually I would not even try to be sarcastic or funny, just because they don’t know you, and they don’t have a way to tell from your facial expression or tone of voice if you’re joking,” Byron said. “They don’t have the context or knowledge about you—they lack sufficient personalized information about you to know how to interpret it, and they might not appreciate your sense of humor.

“I get it: Everyone is not everyone else’s cup of tea, so you have to proceed with caution when making a joke or using sarcasm,” she said. “I do think that you want to be careful—if you don’t know someone, I would not try to attempt humor generally.

“That’s the big takeaway: Know your audience.”

“Just Add a Woman and Stir” Is Not Enough for Board Success

By Daniel Butcher

Even at organizations that have made strides in adding women and people of color to their governing boards, tokenism is all too common. Diverse board members can’t make a difference if their longer-tenured colleagues routinely disregard their suggestions.

Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron of Georgia State University said that female board members and those representing an ethnic or racial minority are often sidelined, technically part of the board but to whom the other directors or trustees don’t really listen.

Byron and research colleague Corinne Post of Villanova published an article on this topic in Academy of Management Journal.

“There’s this idea that you just add women and stir and that’s enough, but that’s not enough,” Byron said. “If we’re saying that the ways in which a woman might add value is that she might have different perspectives or a different lens through which to look at an issue, or she might have information or knowledge or experience that maybe some of her male colleagues don’t have.

“That knowledge, experience, and perspectives mean nothing—they’re not going to have any effect—if people aren’t willing to acknowledge the usefulness of that perspective or knowledge or experience,” she said. “There’s probably lots of other things that are important to whether or not the woman on the board is a token, or whether or not there’s some kind of critical mass of female directors on the board.

“Do people think, ‘Oh, she’s just there on the board because we had to fill this quota—she wasn’t the best person to serve in this role; she’s just here for window dressing to make us look good.’”

Diversity is hollow if it isn’t accompanied by equity, inclusion, and fostering a sense of belonging among members of marginalized and minority groups. Actually listening to female board members’ ideas and suggestions and enacting the best of them are crucial for them to have a chance to improve an organization’s leadership.

“There has to be this real belief among the other board directors that these women, that all of the directors, have some value-add, and that isn’t a given,” Byron said. “So that’s what it means that you can’t just add women and stir.

“There has to be some other things that are in place in order for women to have a positive impact on an organization, especially on something that’s so distal or downstream like firm performance,” she said. “Board directors largely have an indirect effect on organizational performance.”

Sharing Personal Details Can Help at Work

By Daniel Butcher

Chatting at work about friends and family members, hobbies, favorite movies and songs, and the weather is just a waste of time, right?

Wrong.

Colleagues who reveal personal information and what they do outside the office can form stronger bonds with one another and can be more productive at completing collaborative tasks.

Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron of Georgia State University said that allowing colleagues to learn personal information about you can highlight similarities between you. It can be the foundation fora more lasting relationship.

Byron and research colleagues Ashley Hardin of Washington University in St. Louis, Beth Schinoff of the University of Delaware, and Rachel Balven of Arizona State University published an article on this topic in Academy of Management Journal.

“Even if I find out that you’re different from me, I still know that you’re more of a whole person than what I previously assumed based on the sliver that I see of you at work,” Byron said. “Now I get to see more of who you are outside of the office, and that makes me feel more comfortable in my interactions with you, because I understand you better.

“I understand you more, and I see you more as a as a whole human person who isn’t just a cog in the machine,” she said. “Instead, I’m reminded that you are a real living, breathing human, and that’s really important at work.

“At work, yes, we get tasks done, but the way in which we get tasks done at work is through our relationships, and so having relationships with people forms the foundation for any work that gets done, and so that’s why it’s really important that we have strong relationships with people at work.”

You Aren’t as Good at Writing Emails as You Think You Are

By Daniel Butcher

Here’s a hard truth: Most people aren’t as good at writing emails as they think they are. Humor gets lost or misinterpreted, and emails intended to be positive typically come off as neutral, while messages intended to be neutral often come off as negative. Email recipients often interpret constructive criticism as more disparaging and hurtful than the sender intended.

Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron of Georgia State University said that the main problem is that people are overconfident in their ability to craft a written message that conveys exactly what they intend. She published a research article on this topic in Academy of Management Review.

“Before hitting send on an email, people might want to pause and ask themselves, ‘What am I trying to say?’ because most forget that there’s a strong possibility that their message could be interpreted more negatively than they intend,” Byron said. “That’s really the most likely error.

“We don’t know how other people will interpret what we write—when we’re typing, we can hear our own voice in our head,” she said. “We can hear the way we’d say it, so we know what our own tone is, but once someone gets that message, they don’t hear that same thing.

“There’s just this real disconnect, which means that people can misperceive them.”

A common email mistake to avoid

A common email pitfall is to be too task-focused, Byron said. Cutting to the chase—“Just the facts, ma’am”—can come off as terse to the point of being rude.

“This is just generally how I am—when I’m working, a lot of times, I’m just trying to get my work done,” Byron said. “I used to have to go back and add the pleasantries to the top and bottom of my emails, but usually when I write an email now, it’s something I do—it’s a habit.

“In almost every email that I send, I include, ‘Is everything going all right?’ or something like that; ‘I hope you’re doing well,’” she said. “That’s the big thing—people are so task-focused that they just immediately jump into work, and that’s good to a certain extent.

“We should be staying on task at work, and, yes, you need to get work done, but also it’s really important to maintain strong, positive, good relationships with people, and the way work gets done is relationally.”

Especially when delivering criticism via email, even if it’s intended to be constructive, Byron said that it’s a good idea to take a step back and think, How can I soften this up a little bit?

“This is not a big ask to just write a pleasantry or compliment or two, even if it’s just something that’s a little trite or cliché, for example, ‘Happy New Year!’ or ‘Hope you’re doing well,’ something little to make your email not be quite so harsh-seeming to the person who receives it,” she said.

What Are the Effects of Adding Women to Boards? It’s Complicated.

By Daniel Butcher

Research shows that companies with more female directors can have better firm performance—and this is especially the case in countries that have stronger shareholder protections or that have greater gender equality. In addition, organizations whose boards have more female directors tend to be more engaged in activities that are central to boards’ responsibilities: monitoring and strategy involvement.

Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron of Georgia State University said that board monitoring refers to the extent to which boards engage in activities that entail oversight of the firm and seek to control managers. Board strategy involvement refers to the extent to which boards engage in activities related to their advising role and decide how firms should compete in the marketplace.

Byron and research colleague Corinne Post of Villanova published an article on this topic in Academy of Management Journal.

“What we found was that there was a positive effect of adding women to the board on strategic involvement and a positive impact on board monitoring, but that board diversity is neither wholly detrimental nor wholly beneficial to firm financial performance,” Byron said. “There is some research showing that when you have more women on your board, they’re more likely to influence fellow directors’ or trustees’ behavior and that the norms of the board changes, for example, attendance gets better.

“There’s this spillover effect that women might have; maybe they come onto the board and they’re more diligent,” she said. “In some ways, that makes sense, because there aren’t tons of women who are in those kinds of senior positions, and so, if she got to that position, then she is probably quite exceptional and especially conscientious.

“Those behaviors may spill over to her male counterparts on the board, and there is research suggesting that that’s something that probably occurs.”

Imagining Interactions at Work in Advance

By Daniel Butcher

Imagining potential work-related interactions in advance helps professionals to prepare responses to their ideas, suggestions and questions. It can also make introverted or less talkative people more comfortable making conversation and speaking up in meetings.

Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron of Georgia State University said that as jobs become unstable and employees are increasingly geographically separated and likely to communicate via technology, professionals may find it more difficult to feel connected with one another. Imagining interactions with bosses and colleagues can help workers communicate more effectively.

Byron and research colleague Beth Schinoff of the University of Delaware published an article on this topic in Academy of Management Review.

“A benefit is that you might be more prepared; you’ve been thinking through various scenarios for how a conversation or meeting might play out,” Byron said. “Let’s say you want to discuss a potential new initiative, so you might anticipate that there’s going to be some resistance to that, and that’s a possibility that you should be anticipating, that with any change, you might be met with some resistance.

“And it’s really useful to think through: What would that look like? How are you going to respond? How do you keep your cool?” she said. “Maybe this feels like something really cool that you came up with, and so it would be really important to think through: How are you going to not appear defensive when someone pushes back on your proposed initiative?

“In that way, thinking through the possibilities is really important.”

Bryron said people should think through: How could this go wrong? But it’s also important to think through: What are the ways this could go really well?

“That’s because you need to keep yourself energized and enthusiastic about what you’re going to do,” she said. “The best-case scenario is that you think through lots of different scenarios of how this could play out, so that you’re über-prepared for whatever might come at you.”

What It Takes to Be a Powerful Leader

Source: Shutterstock

By Daniel Butcher

To climb the ladder in your profession and achieve success, hard work is table stakes, not a differentiator. And to progress from rank-and-file employee to manager to respected, powerful leader might require a fundamental mindset shift of letting go of a need to be seen as likeable and authentic while cultivating professional relationships.

Academy of Management Scholar Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University, one of today’s most influential management professors and researchers, offers some takeaways on that subject from his book7 Rules of Power, which isa manual for increasing the ability to get things done and benefitting from job performance.

“Good performance by itself is not necessarily going to bring you the level of career success that you need,” Pfeffer said. “In addition, you need technical and political skills to have your boss recognize your good contributions.

“If you think about management, and leadership is managing through other people, you need to learn how to interact with other people across your organization in ways that build your influence and permit you to get the things done that you want to get done,” he said.

Pfeffer’s seven rules power are:

1. Get out of your own way: “Lose the self-descriptions and inhibitions that hold you back, for example, the idea that you have to be liked, because, as an executive, you’re hired to get things done, not necessarily to win a popularity contest. Lose this currently popular idea that you need to be quote-unquote authentic, which is, of course, incorrect.”

2. Break the rules: “In strategy and organizational leadership, if you do what everybody else does, you will probably not succeed—you need to differentiate yourself.”

3. Show up in powerful fashion: “Body language and how we communicate is obviously important.”

4. Create a powerful brand: “If you’re perceived as a powerful, effective, efficacious leader, then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—good people want to work with you, invest with you, and buy from your company.”

5. Network relentlessly: “That’s something that people often don’t want to do, so they underinvest in networking because they feel dirty about it and don’t see it as the value-adding activity that it is.”

6. Use your power: “Not all use of power will be met with unalloyed approval, so leaders need to be willing to incur some level of social disapproval. But because most people are usually averse to conflict, it is surprising how much one can accomplish by seizing the initiative.”

7. Understand that once you have acquired power, what you did to get it will be forgiven, forgotten, or both: “Once you have power and status and success, no one will care how you got it, and people will people will accommodate themselves, because people like to be close to power.”

Upon reading or hearing about those precepts and their implications for workplace power dynamics, many people have an adverse reaction. That’s natural and understandable, Pfeffer said.

“Every person should understand and come to terms with the seven rules of power, and most will go through stages: first, denial—‘This doesn’t work in my organization’s culture’—then they will have anger, which will mostly be directed at me, which is fine,” he said. “Then they will have sadness—‘I’m depressed by it’—and finally, they often come to acceptance that this is not only the way the world works, but they can build agency around this.

“My biggest contribution is causing them to see their own agency and encouraging them to be more ambitious and more agentic around navigating their own career and getting their boss to recognize their talents, instead of sitting back and waiting for the human resources department to offer promotions and raises.”

How Organizations Undermine Managers’ Effectiveness

Source: Shutterstock

By Daniel Butcher

Many organizations are guilty of some common missteps when it comes to how they’re handling their managers.

Academy of Management Scholar Carol Kulik of the University of South Australia said that part of the problem is that managers don’t have the chance to practice leadership skills or management strategies and tactics before they have to actually put them into practice leading a team.

“Many line managers don’t get proper training before taking on their role, and as a result, their first thought is the impact of employees’ career-development decisions on themselves; this is a very natural reaction,” Kulik said. “So when an employee comes to you and says, ‘I have this other job opportunity, and I’m going to be leaving,’ it’s hard for line managers in the moment to say, ‘Oh, that does sound like a good opportunity; I’m happy for you,’ because what they’re thinking in their head is, ‘Oh, this really sucks for me, because I’ve made this big investment in onboarding and developing you and now I’m going to have to replace you.’

“Leadership has to train line managers to find the right words at the right time,” she said. “And most organizations don’t make that investment in their line managers. “I know it sounds contradictory, but line managers need to have these scripts available, to be prepared for the unexpected.”

Kulik said that she encourages organizations to look carefully at their line managers.

“I often call them the unsung heroes,” she said. “Organizations have so much hanging on the line managers doing the right thing at the right time in individual interactions with their team members, and I think they’re chronically underappreciated in organizations today.”

A sample of Kulik’s AOM research findings:

• Keeping Older Workers Engaged
• Engage Me: The Mature-Age Worker and Stereotype Threat
• Aging Populations and Management
• Physical Environments and Employee Reactions: Effects of Stimulus-Screening Skills and Job Complexity
• Relations Between Situational Factors and the Comparative Referents Used by Employees