Lack of Will & Empowerment of Employees

[selena15]

Hi all
do you think that facing a lack of will from some employees to do some tasks has as root cause a lack of empowerment of the responsible of this tasks?
i mean if they got additional tasks from another dept responsible or area, and they don't provide any feedback to his request, even this project was presented to them by the Mgt.

Does this because they don't see this responsible as their direct one so no problem to panic or what is it exactly?

that's mean, does providing enough empowerment would correct a bad will from one employee?

When employees won’t fulfill the requirements if they can scape or to “delegate” it to another person. Does this behavior arise if there is lack of willingness or because the sender of the requirement has not enough authority ?

I got this question from one friend and i want to share it.
Sel

[Jennifer Kirley]

This is a series of rather complex questions that could fill a number of chapters in a book on organizational leadership. There is no way I could give succinct answers that directly apply to the concepts because they are subjective: there are shades of gray, and combinations of more than one concept that could be correct for the situation. As I am not there with you, I would be doing a disservice in trying to answer you fully. I am sorry if this seems escapist.

Nor does it help to say my next, as-yet unfinished white paper is to be on this very subject. If it was ready I would point you to it.

But I can say that human behavior is generally based on motivation that one can loosely ascertain via the theories of:

Maslow
McGregor
Deming
Drucker

It is important to point out that all of these leadership and management experts are White European; that is, they are experienced in and addressing industry dynamics in developed nations. We can expect both worker and managerial behavior to rather differ among businesses, industries and societies, so no one set of advice works for all.

I hope not to disappoint you.

[BradM]

Selena,

People are extremely complex folks; lot of marbles rolling around in their head.

Jennifer set the stage for the complexity and possible motivations for this. If you're an ASQ member, look up the paper I wrote on Project Quality Activities and goal feedback and stuff.

Point being... People have goals, and left unattended, they will work towards their own goals. The people need constant feedback and goal alignment to stay on track for the group goal.

They have a goal. The challenge is to get that goal to align with the goal you want them to pursue.

[Wes Bucey]

Frankly, as one of those "white Europeans" [of the male gender, no less!], I lean toward a more practical application of employee/staff relations.

I start with the assumption the employee wants a job that pays money and provides reasonable working conditions (physical AND psychological.) I don't really care WHY he wants money other than to feed, clothe, and house himself, so I make sure I pay a fair wage and let the employee work out his own life.

I'm a great believer in employee empowerment, BUT I never throw someone into the water before assuring myself he can swim, so I evaluate competency to perform a task before setting someone to the task without close supervision. (When I was a lifeguard at a pool 50+ years ago, we simply didn't let small kids go off a diving board until we witnessed them swim the width of the pool. [I note lifeguards today still required this of my own young grandchildren. They got a special wristband showing they had EARNED the privilege of "empowerment."])

My experience has been that employees who are competent to perform a task and have demonstrated that competence to bosses are much more confident in performing tasks (maybe because we have eliminated an element of FEAR they may do something wrong and get punished?)

I probably have a lot different idea of employee supervision or management than Brad, who wrote

The people need constant feedback and goal alignment to stay on track for the group goal.

I'm pretty much of a Laissez-Faire Leadership kind of guy.

Unstructured leadership where a manager gives subordinates direct decision-making responsibilities. While this is the weakest form of management style, it is consistent with employee Empowerment.

My only "constant feedback" with an employee is the regular paycheck. I also regularly evaluate the finished product or service, but only infrequently do I check (audit?) the process to see it conforms to the standard the employee and I have agreed on during the competency evaluation. If the process doesn't follow the standard, I discuss this with the employee - perhaps the employee has found a better way, but hasn't thought it necessary to seek me out for approval, since we have agreed the finished product or service was his to accomplish without being micromanaged. I don't indulge in patronizing "attaboys" or play the cheerleader for my team - a boss's role is coach and manager, not cheerleader.

[selena15]

Hi all
i would look on these theory Jennifer and also for your paper
honestly, when i launched this question, i didn't spare my thought and it was just , fail of management style. for me, employees are what they are but when they attend in one entity to work, to achieve their goals and fulfill their duties, but for sure, they will do so according the framework of this entity, how the values or management culture are strong or no. sure, their personal view, goal and sense of responsibility has part in their acting. As you said Jennifer, it is more than one point to be considered inside. but sometimes i would say that above all this different reasons, there is a core or one common point of it. it like to say " there is lot of reasons, but the result remain the same" it is local saying

They have a goal. The challenge is to get that goal to align with the goal you want them to pursue.

Sure, it is one reason of this reaction, but once again i would say that it is relating of how the current complexity and various duties that we are expect to achieve in our daily-working and even we have our goal, target, the other unexpected or new requirement has it's importance to be performed and the idea is how this target is spread to employees to ensure to get their awareness on it.
thanks for feedback
Sel

[Martin IT]

Usually when there are problems with the employees the main responsability is due to Management ( HR dosen't choose the right person for that kind of job or the management hasn't got them a clear guidance).
In your case, just one person ( their boss ) should say what the employees have to do and checks if they do it. The boss should avoid that other people of the organization could pass them more tasks.
You can't hope that the sense of responsabilty could manage the work in the company ( in that case why you pay a manager? ).
In my opinion the best way to avoid this kind of problems is always keep in mind a clear organization of the company at any level!

[Jennifer Kirley]

In Reply to Parent Post by selena15

Hi all
i would look on these theory Jennifer and also for your paper
honestly, when i launched this question, i didn't spare my thought and it was just , fail of management style. for me, employees are what they are but when they attend in one entity to work, to achieve their goals and fulfill their duties, but for sure, they will do so according the framework of this entity, how the values or management culture are strong or no. sure, their personal view, goal and sense of responsibility has part in their acting. As you said Jennifer, it is more than one point to be considered inside. but sometimes i would say that above all this different reasons, there is a core or one common point of it. it like to say " there is lot of reasons, but the result remain the same" it is local saying

Sure, it is one reason of this reaction, but once again i would say that it is relating of how the current complexity and various duties that we are expect to achieve in our daily-working and even we have our goal, target, the other unexpected or new requirement has it's importance to be performed and the idea is how this target is spread to employees to ensure to get their awareness on it.
thanks for feedback
Sel

I agree it's about both personal motivation and management. That is why I included two links for each.

To add to the complexity, managers are also motivated and the type of motivation can differ from his or her employees. When that happens, managers should pay close attention to employee needs so the manager's success can be a result of employees doing well because they are enabled to do well, and avoid driving employee behavior through simple reward and punishment. This can be extremely challenging for people - many do not do it well, which helps explain some of the dysfunction in the workplace.

[BradM]

Jennifer, have you got into Leadership Substitutes very much (Kerr and Jermier)?

Essentially, in many occupations, the job (or the end result) becomes the source of leading the activity. In their initial paper, the authors used Hawkeye from M.A.S.H. as the example. He was always driven to save people; regardless of what else is going on.

Plain and simple, most humans have a variety of rewards (in addition to a paycheck) they want from a job. When you can align the individual needs with the organization needs, then you have success.

A decent manager helps set goals. A good manager is giving constant goal feedback; helping the individual achieve the goals.

Again, goals are just one of many theories to approach this from. We haven't even touched Equity Theory yet.