Senior Managers Out of Touch with Junior-Level Staff
Steve Simpson
Keystone Management Services, March 2008
Many senior managers are out of touch with their workplace culture, according to Australian-based Keystone Management Services' recent international study of more than 1,000 people.
The study, titled "Bad Behaviors, Toxic Cultures," reveals that many senior managers don't realize staff are engaging in such distracting activity as gossiping, spreading rumors or ridiculing management.
The company's director and author of the study, Steve Simpson, said he found consistent and strong differences about how senior, middle and non-managers viewed their workplace culture. For instance, more than 40 percent of employees surveyed said that negative behavior was rife in their workplace, while only 20 percent of senior managers felt this behavior was commonplace.
In contrast, Simpson finds, 72 percent of senior managers said staff often displayed positive, solutions-oriented mindsets, while only 50 percent of non-managers felt this behavior was commonly showed.
Simpson finds that because senior managers seem to be unaware problems exist, it is unlikely that underlying issues will be addressed. The consequence of a negative workplace culture include staff who only carry out the minimum work required, lost productivity as energies are directed towards negative behavior and higher staff turnover.
To correct these trends, Simpson writes that it is vital that senior managers get in touch with workplace behavior. They can do this by putting in place tools to monitor the organization's culture and then act on the results and be open to feedback. He also reasons that non-managers can also help improve their workplace culture by directing their energies towards being constructive and by speaking to their manager if they have a problem rather than dealing with the issue in a negative manner.
