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The Idea in Brief
When one person in a work relationship holds power over another, difficulties ensue. Managers’ and direct reports’ perspectives are often diametrically opposed. Most managers expect their direct reports to be loyal, honest, and willing to follow orders. They view these expectations as completely compatible. Direct reports, however, often experience them as quite contradictory. How can you be loyal and disagree with your boss at the same time?
Managers occupy a dual role—they have direct reports, but also report to some one. Rarely, however, are either managers or direct reports able to put themselves in the others’ shoes. This makes them oblivious to the power dynamics that hinder productive work relationships.
For example, your boss has significant influence over your career. This power may cause him inadvertently to impede your development. He may make you feel that it’s too risky to admit weaknesses. This prevents you from getting his help in strengthening those weaknesses and advancing your career.
The Idea in Practice
The negative effects of hierarchical differences in the workplace can be summarized by the saying, “Trust flees authority.”
Managers as Supervisors
Functioning in the supervisory role reminds managers how much real power their direct reports have over them. At the same time, however, they are often unaware of the ways they misuse their power over direct reports, or send them contradictory messages. For example, a manager may say he’s only interested in performance, but then unconsciously reward excessively deferential behavior. The subtle message: the manager wants obedience for its own sake. Moreover, when functioning as supervisors, managers tend to be less concerned about compatibility issues—they just assume that a direct report will adapt his behavior to their preferences.
Managers as Direct Reports
Funny thing: the supervisory relationship looks remarkably different when viewed from below. When functioning as direct reports, managers tend to focus on the chemistry they have with their bosses: indeed, they often develop an outsized concern for pleasing their bosses. The reason? They forget that their bosses’ performance depends on committed employees doing their jobs. Seeing themselves as too weak to be able to change their bosses’ behavior, managers functioning as direct reports tend to be less interested in autonomy and more interested in just getting clear direction from above.
Power differentials can never be completely eliminated, even in the flattest organization. But there are steps managers can take to harmonize these almost diametrically opposed perspectives.
When Functioning as Supervisors, Managers Should:
- remember that the burden for maintaining a healthy work relationship falls primarily on them. Don’t expect a direct report to take the initiative in complaining about a boss’s unreasonable or unfair conduct. Useful questions for the manager to ask himself: “How would I feel if my boss behaved this way or demanded this of me?” and “What can I do to increase my employees’ trust?”
- learn to monitor subtle cues, since direct reports are less likely to express their feelings forthrightly.
When Functioning as Direct Reports, Managers Should:
- remember that it’s often easiest simply to ask bosses what they want
- put themselves in their bosses’ shoes by asking themselves, “What do I care about most when I’m in the boss’s role?”
Most managers are action oriented. As a result, many are not inclined to be introspective about how they relate to others on the job. They don’t fully realize, for example, how power differences can disturb interpersonal relations at work and, consequently, undermine organizational effectiveness.
Let’s look at three typical problems:
- Brian Dolan and John Miller, both senior engineers in an electronics company, had worked well as colleagues in their company’s R&D department. Their relationship was friendly and informal. Each felt free to drop in unannounced on the other to discuss technical problems or swap company gossip.
Then Brian was promoted to director of R&D, and shortly thereafter he called John and asked him to come to his office to discuss installation plans for the company’s new computer-aided design system. The call puzzled and angered John. Brian was only two doors away. Why didn’t he just drop by? After all, they were good friends. Why did he have to play the boss? When John went to Brian’s office, it was all he could do to hide his irritation. Brian greeted him warmly, but John was reserved during their discussion.
Why, Brian wondered on the trip home that evening, had John acted so oddly? Was it because he had been promoted and not John? That had to be it. John was jealous. John, on the other hand, didn’t understand how Brian’s new position could make him insensitive to how John might react.
- Mary Scarpa, divisional director for a specialty steel fabricator, asked Roger Harrison, a middle manager, for his opinion on a major capital investment decision she was about to make. Roger had serious reservations about the assumptions underlying her cash flow projections. He wanted to level with her, but he also worried that honest criticism would upset her. He knew Mary could be very touchy. Although she had asked for candid feedback, Roger wasn’t sure she really meant it; he sensed she really wanted reinforcement. Feeling caught in a bind, Roger conveniently “forgot” her request.
Annoyed by Roger’s behavior, Mary complained to a colleague at another company about problems with her subordinates, saying they just wouldn’t stick their necks out. They were afraid to give honest opinions because they were insecure, she said. On his part, Roger was insensitive to the reasons why bosses may find it risky to have subordinates challenge their judgment, even when they ask for it.
- Dick Rapp, vice president of production for a household appliance manufacturer, told his subordinates that his priority was quality control and cost containment. He wanted defect and scrap rates brought down. He wanted the division to be results driven, not rule driven. “If you have to bend a rule to get the job done, do it,” Rapp would say.
His employees took him at his word at first and assumed that any improvement in efficiency would be welcome. But they quickly learned otherwise. Dick Rapp cared as much about style and form as he did about substance. How memos were worded and typed, for example, seemed to concern him as much as what they said. He also chewed out several plant supervisors for approving ad hoc scheduling and other changes and not going through the chain of command.
Understandably, this behavior frustrated Dick’s subordinates. They faced conflicting expectations, and they had to take time away from important tasks to meet what they considered frivolous demands. No one tried to understand, though, why bosses prefer to have things done their way and how this may be their means of heightening their feelings of being in control and reducing uncertainty. And nobody dared to explore these issues with Dick, nor could he see that he was sending mixed messages and burying people in the very red tape he wanted them to cut through.
How did these situations develop? Did Brian Dolan subconsciously need to pull rank on subordinates? Did Mary Scarpa relish putting her employees in a double bind? Did Dick Rapp enjoy tripping up his people? Were the subordinates rebellious people, unwilling to accept authority and take direction?
Such problems occur with surprising frequency in work situations. Usually they arise not because superiors are inherently insensitive or power hungry or because subordinates are naturally rebellious but because people don’t understand how strongly hierarchical position affects behavior in organizations. Workplace conflicts are often attributed to personality differences, but the root of the problem is usually structural. The organization’s power hierarchy can distort mutual expectations.
Power in the Organization
Unevenness of power in the organization subtly influences how managers and subordinates relate to each other. Mary couldn’t understand Roger’s reticence. But if she had reflected on her own experiences as a subordinate, she might have realized that she too had been cautious at times about giving honest feedback to superiors. Had Brian been able to put himself in John’s shoes and think of a new R&D director officiously summoning him, he might have better understood John’s behavior.
Dick was a results-driven manager who said he cared about quality, not style. Today he works for superiors whose preference for ritualistic, by-the-book action frustrates him. Yet he can’t see that he’s doing the same thing. He doesn’t relate his own experience as a subordinate to the feelings and behavior of the people working for him.
Brian, Mary, and Dick all had trouble putting themselves in their subordinates’ shoes. In subordinate roles, on the other hand, John and Roger couldn’t see how it might feel to be a boss. This lack of sensitivity on both sides can have ripple effects throughout the organization. Managers who believe they are on the receiving end of unreasonable or unfair actions from their bosses, for example, may act similarly toward those below them in the organizational pyramid. And the pattern may repeat itself down the chain of command. Or relations with peers may suffer. A troubled relationship at one level can affect many other relationships.
When superiors can’t see how their behavior affects their subordinates, their authority may also deteriorate. Most bosses know instinctively that their power depends more on employees’ compliance than on threats or sanctions. When managers create no-win situations for people, as Mary did, or make confusing demands on workers, as did Dick, subordinates may respond by losing enthusiasm or withdrawing commitment. If workers think they’ve been put in impossible situations or if a superior’s exaggerated need for power makes them feel inferior, they may give the company their worst rather than their best. The response could mean just going through the motions of the job or even sabotaging organizational goals.
True, managers have power. They can call on official sanctions for punishing uncooperative subordinates. But such blatant use of their clout is rarely able to restore effective working relationships. It is a weak rather than a strong pillar of authority.
There are other consequences arising from this asymmetry in power relations and role perceptions, as we can see when we look at managers as subordinates. If the danger for superiors is being insufficiently sensitive about their subordinates’ potential reactions, the danger for subordinates tends to be excessive concern about superiors’ potential reactions. Managers who worry excessively about offending their bosses are much less likely to defend subordinates when higher-ups deal unfairly with them.
But if a manager doesn’t defend subordinates, he or she will lose their respect. When subordinates sense that the boss won’t defend them against unfairness, their morale will plummet and they will withdraw commitment to the job. A vicious circle results. As their performance deteriorates, their superior’s position weakens further. The boss will receive fewer rewards and resources to dispense to subordinates, thus further undermining his or her effectiveness as distinct from merely titular authority.
It’s ironic that so many managers are insensitive to this problem because almost all managers occupy a dual position in the organization. They have subordinates who report to them, and they report to superiors. Being both masters and servants of power, they should be able to understand the perspectives of the two groups of people who play the most important roles in their professional lives—namely, their superiors and subordinates.
To probe this duality of the manager’s role and the sharp differences in expectations that power differences create, we recently collected questionnaires from 105 executives of major companies. We divided the people into two similar groups, matched according to age, management position, and other characteristics. We asked one group of managers to describe the expectations they had for their superiors, the second, to describe expectations for subordinates. In addition, we had conversations with a number of the executives we surveyed.
As the Exhibit shows, the expectations of the two groups differed sharply. Of the managers we asked to take the superior role, 78% said they are primarily concerned about subordinates’ performance. A majority also said they expect subordinates to be loyal and honest. A typical comment was “I expect effective performance and loyalty even when difficult or unpleasant duties have to be performed.”
Exhibit Comparison of role expectations
The superiors we talked to view loyalty, honesty, and performance as linked. They also see honest communication and a willingness to follow orders as necessary to get the job done. But at the same time, they don’t see the potential conflict that lies in demanding loyalty and desiring honesty and frankness from subordinates. Many seem unaware of the extent to which they confuse loyalty with agreement and obedience. They also seem to underestimate the difficulty subordinates have in being honest about their own problems or weaknesses with people who have so much influence on their careers.
What happens when the shoe is on the other foot?
When managers take the subordinate position, they expect leadership and good communication from their superiors. A director of finance we talked to said, “I expect my superior to give me clear messages about what he expects from me.” A vice president of engineering commented, “The boss should establish his requirements absolutely clearly.”
Why do subordinates want clear communication and decisive leadership from their superiors? One reason is that they need reassurance that their bosses are competent. Clear communication is a good measure of competence. Subordinates also want to minimize uncertainty in their environment. Clear communication reduces guesswork. But decisiveness and clarity of communication alone aren’t enough. Our interviews revealed that subordinates also want consistency.
Managers in both interview groups gave initiative and autonomy much lower ratings than we had expected. Fewer than a third of the people who took the superior role said they expect initiative from subordinates. Only 37% of those in the subordinate position said it is important for their superiors to grant them autonomy. This is odd when one considers how strongly management experts today endorse job autonomy and broad participation in decision making.
Subordinates don’t want superiors to be constantly peering over their shoulders. Instead, they want enough leeway to do the jobs as they see fit. “The boss shouldn’t interfere in details,” a sales manager said, and “My manager should give me enough space to do my job,” said an administrative officer.
Subordinates also want fair performance appraisals, support, and encouragement. Another sales manager said, “My superior should show fairness, objectivity, honesty, and a willingness to give feedback without my having to ask for it.” A division manager answered, “I expect help, encouragement, and coaching, and the opportunity to learn from my mistakes.” And an R&D director reported, “I expect support in conflict situations.”
Managers as superiors.
As bosses, managers are not only often unaware of how they misuse their power in relation to subordinates, but they are also frequently unaware of the contradictory messages they send and their motives for doing so. For example, they may tell subordinates that they expect them to be candid and to feel free to offer criticism. Yet at the same time, they communicate disapproval of candid feedback through subtle and sometimes not so subtle cues.
Managers may even confuse excessive deference (pleasing behavior) with the normal level of compliance that they feel they have a legitimate right to expect. They may not see the ways in which they signal to subordinates demands for excessively deferential behavior—and they are also often unaware of the deep resentment that these demands produce.
In the superior role, most managers say that they are more concerned about their subordinates’ performance than with obedience for its own sake or with workers doing things the boss’s way. Despite the overt message they send, however—“good performance is what really counts in my department”—many managers communicate subtly to subordinates that obedience and deference are just as important, if not more so. This is usually subconscious on the managers’ part.
Most executives have trouble learning about the expectations their subordinates have of them simply because they are rarely forthright about how they’d like their bosses to behave. Actually, most subordinates work hard to adapt their behavior to what they think the boss expects. Although the chief’s actions may be very frustrating to them, few will express openly their dislike of the behavior or try to persuade the boss to change—even when invited to criticize.
This reticence can lead to surprising angry outbursts when smoldering resentment suddenly surfaces. The superior ends up wondering, “Why didn’t you come to me earlier with this problem?” Bosses will often deny blame and claim they’ve always had an open-door policy. Many apparently assume that such a policy alone is sufficient to guarantee a fully open relationship and to minimize the effects of power.
Managers as subordinates.
As subordinates, managers develop an exaggerated concern over pleasing their bosses because they believe they have very little power to change the superior’s behavior. Whatever the boss’s rhetoric may be, they are convinced they know the real score. As a result, they spend much time scrutinizing the boss’s behavior for cues that indicate approval or disapproval.
As one manager put it, “I suppose it’s true: I study [my manager’s] likes, dislikes, and other personal tastes; his objectives and motivations and the time pressure he may be under.” One division head said of his superior, “I take into account how his thinking differs from mine, what things he is likely to view in a different way.”
Managers as superiors know how much they depend on their subordinates’ performance and, therefore, how much real power, as opposed to formal power, their subordinates have over them. But when bosses are subordinates, they often forget this reality of organizational life. They forget that the boss’s performance depends heavily on how committed the subordinates are to their jobs and on the quality of their work. Consequently, the subordinates often seem to focus too much on accommodating their superiors’ stylistic preferences and not enough on performance per se. They don’t always recognize that they possess real power that they can use with their bosses to negotiate and obtain satisfaction for their legitimate needs and demands. They seem unable to transfer their experiences as bosses to their behavior as subordinates.
Because subordinates perceive themselves as being too weak to alter their superiors’ behavior, managers in the subordinate role are extremely concerned with whether they have a natural match (“good chemistry”) with their bosses. When relating to subordinates, on the other hand, managers don’t seem concerned about compatibility. They assume that their subordinates can easily learn to conform to their expectations and that this reshaping of behavior will not harm the organization. In reality, however, having to adapt like this is likely to keep subordinates from making a full contribution. In most cases, inhibiting people this way creates resentment.
Consequences of Power
When managers fail to understand how deeply the unequal distribution of power can hurt interpersonal relations and productivity, serious problems can arise for the organization. The most important and pervasive negative effect of the hierarchical structure can be summarized in the saying, “Trust flees authority.” Good ideas often remain unexpressed because subordinates believe they will be punished for disagreeing with their superiors or showing too much competence. Honest feedback about the superior’s managerial style is withheld because subordinates are afraid they’ll be blackballed when decisions on promotions are made.
Reducing the upward flow of ideas and feedback can have many adverse consequences. Take, for example, the many MBO programs that run into difficulty. An honest contract between superiors and subordinates, based on a fair exchange of contributions and rewards between the individuals and the organization, should be at the core of an MBO program. This is only possible, however, if subordinates feel that they will not be punished for defending their interests or balking at unreasonable demands from the top. Unfair MBO agreements may work in the short term, but they will usually fail in the long haul.
When managers are dissatisfied with the contracts they have with their bosses, unfair contracts may follow at each level down the ladder. Such a pattern can damage management’s credibility as well as the whole organization’s authority.
What can managers do?
Nobody is to blame for these distortions of hierarchical power. The problem is inherent in organizational life because authority differences are both inevitable and also functional to a degree. The problem cannot be avoided, but it can be controlled if managers strive to link their two roles as masters and servants of power.
When they are in the superior role, they should ask themselves, “How would I feel if my boss behaved this way or demanded this of me?” For example, Brian in our first case might have stopped to think, “I need to talk to John, but if I summon him, he may think I’m trying to remind him that I got the promotion and he didn’t. And why, after all, am I doing this? Can’t I get the information just as well by phone? Come to think of it, I remember the time I got angry when my boss asked me to come running on a moment’s notice.”
Managers can also ask whether the tasks they assign to subordinates are truly critical to the job—as distinct from ritualistic demands motivated by an unconscious desire to show people that “rank has its privileges” or to reassure themselves that they can make people do what they want them to do. “Power: use it or lose it,” as another saying goes.
The burden for getting relationships back on a healthy basis falls mainly to bosses because they have more power and because it would be unrealistic to expect subordinates to take the initiative and complain about their bosses’ unreasonable or unfair conduct. Even if superiors encourage honest feedback, people rarely believe that they mean it. So, generally they won’t risk testing the boss’s sincerity.
When they are the superior, managers need to ask themselves, “What can I do to increase my employees’ trust, or at least decrease their mistrust? What signals may indicate problems?” Managers need to learn to monitor subordinates’ subtle cues. It helps to understand that it’s easier for subordinates to learn about bosses’ reactions and desires because superiors are more likely to express their feelings openly. By the same token, it’s more difficult for bosses to find out their subordinates’ real feelings; they’re likely to express them indirectly and with caution.
Directly questioning subordinates rarely works when you’re trying to find out what’s wrong. Managers must look for subtle cues. Eventually, they can create the necessary atmosphere of trust for solving problems, but they can’t do it instantly. It will come only from consistently demonstrating fairness and honesty toward the people working for them.
Managers must look for subtle cues. If they do, they can create the necessary atmosphere of trust for solving problems. But they can’t do it instantly.
In the subordinate role, on the other hand, managers may find that they can more easily manage their relationships with superiors by just asking them what they want. This approach should work with competent and insightful superiors. But for some people, asking questions may not be enough; observing behavior is often equally important. Once again, the managerial subordinate should take advantage of his or her own experience as a boss and ask, “What do I care most about when I’m in the superior role?” Managers who can answer this question insightfully and realistically should be able to move ahead in the important process of understanding and managing their own superiors.
A version of this article appeared in the November 1986 issue of Harvard Business Review.