Incompetent Managers Don’t Want to Hear Your Ideas

August 18, 2014

Incompetent Managers Don’t Want to Hear Your Ideas

In an experimental role-playing scenario, “managers” who were primed to feel incompetent were more likely to denigrate the competence of an “employee” who spoke up and proposed a new operational plan, according to a team led by Nathanael J. Fast of the University of Southern California. The managers who felt unable to fulfill their job expectations rated the employee more negatively than did those who were primed to feel competent. Incompetent managers who are personally threatened by employee suggestions send signals that they are unreceptive, shutting off avenues of new ideas, the researchers say.

SOURCE: Managing to Stay in the Dark: Managerial Self-Efficacy, Ego Defensiveness, and the Aversion to Employee Voice