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Rudeness as a people management style

Kate Hilpern

Workers are feeling harassed as use of in-your-face management techniques increases

London: When Sir Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester United, shouts into players' faces, it's known as "the hairdryer treatment". But if you don't fancy a dose of it in your own workplace, you may be out of luck. A culture of rudeness is creeping into today's offices with the hard-nosed management styles finding their way to a boardroom near you.

While almost all companies pay lip-service to consensus management, many managers resort to command-and-control methods and are too critical of their workforces.

In a survey for workplace communications consultancy CHA's Business Behaving Badly report, four out of 10 employees felt their organisations hadn't worked out how to give constructive criticism — with a similar number saying they were lacking when it came to giving praise, too. Nearly half of employees said they were sometimes bullied into doing things; over half revealed that reprimanding staff in front of others was commonplace.

Brutal styles of ruling the roost can get results in the short-term, says Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster Business School. "But in the medium to long term, you lose good people and even if they stay, they become less productive and there's every chance they'll burn out or become ill."

Occupational psychologist Paul Brewerton adds that many managers simply don't have people skills. "Time and again, I see people being promoted because they are technically very good at their jobs, but they have no training in considering their team's feelings or motivation."

Worse, perhaps is the idea that a quarter of managers surveyed for CHA's report said that if they praise the work of staff, they think they'll ask for a pay rise.

Colette Hill, the author of the report, says she wasn't surprised by the findings "because there is evidence of less courteous behaviour in every sphere of life. There have long been rumblings of unease about how we treat each other in an increasingly bad-tempered Britain," she says.

If you want to find the hub of disrespect at work, it's the meeting rooms. Complaints range from people trying to dominate meetings and turning up late, to cancelling them at the last minute or checking emails and mobiles during discussions. The assumption that impoliteness is the sole preserve of bosses is also incorrect. "Full-time staff can be discourteous to part-time staff," said one respondent to the survey. Customers can be even worse.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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