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  Are You Training Your Managers to Motivate or Alienate?
  Turning alienated employees into committed employees isn't easy. However, managers can make the job easier if they know something about themselves and what they may be doing to create alienation in their direct reports.
Psychological Associates has developed models — systematic descriptions — of human behavior. One of these, the Dimensional® ® Model of Managerial Behavior, casts a searching light on some of the things managers do that alienate direct reports. (See Figure 1)

What effect do these patterns of management have on alienation?

We'll begin with Q1

A manager who's autocratic and manipulative (behavior that the Dimensional® Model of Managerial Behavior labels as Q1) is almost sure to breed alienation in some direct reports.

Autocracy and Alienation

Alienated workers feel that they don't count for very much. This feeling is reinforced, or perhaps even engendered, by autocratic managers who constantly put down their direct reports.

In effect, they say, "I'm paid to think. You're paid to do what I tell you. When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it. Until then, don't give me any back talk."

Even if they don't actually say this — and most autocratic managers aren't this blatant — they imply it by their actions. Their refusal to delegate serious responsibility, their insistence on keeping an eye on their people, their arbitrary decisions, lack of interest in direct reports' ideas, and dogmatic insistence that things be done "my way" — all imply distrust and disdain.

Of course, not every employee is "turned off" by autocratic management. Some people, in fact, find "Big Brother" tactics reassuring; they take comfort in not having to think. However, unfortunately for the organization, employees who have the most to contribute are the most likely to be put off by overbearing authoritarianism. Their first reaction is likely to be frustration, which is followed by resentment and then, perhaps, activism. The intelligence, ingenuity, and inventiveness that should be turned to the company's advantage end up being used against it.

 
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