The Christian manager and the secular manager may do the same thing for different reasons, but the reason may be as important as the action itself. For example, execution and murder both result in death, but the rationale for each is the difference between seeing that justice is done and greatest of injustices.
The management literature has moved away from an authoritarian model of management to one that prescribes benevolence. Nevertheless, in practice, managers still come up short when they seek the fruit without establishing the root.
The secular literature increasingly shows the importance of an employee’s happiness to productivity. Therefore, multiple sources suggest that managers should be kind to their employees in order to make them happy.
For example, in Before Happiness, Shawn Achor explains:
The key to managing this delicate balance is what scientists call the positivity ratio. Powerful research by the mathematician Marcial Losada and the University of North Carolina psychologist Barbara Fredrickson found that in the working world the most variable reality is one in which there is at least a 3:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions (this is called the Losada line). In one study, real business teams were observed in laboratories in Cambridge and Ann Arbor. When the amounts of positive and negative feedback that team members received were tallied and the ratio of positive to negative interactions was calculated, it was found that when the P/N ratio was about 2.90121 teams had significantly higher levels as well as in “360-degree feedback” reports. Below this ratio, engagement and turnover rates shot up. Losada found that the highest-performing teams had a 6 to 1 ratio. So if you or your team are going through a rough period, ramp up the ratio of positive interactions, even by doing something as simple as complimenting someone or bringing in donuts.
This data is interesting as far as it goes, but to the degree that managers continue to see their employees as cogs in a machine rather than the pinnacle of God’s creation, made a little lower than the angels, with their own individual callings (Genesis 1:26-28; Psalm 8:5; Hebrews 2:7, Ephesians 2:10), it is likely that they will continue to send mixed messages at best .
It is more likely that they will continue to self-sabotage their best efforts to manufacture concern for others. Worse, during times of great pressure, they will revert to their actual understanding of human nature and again treat employees like the objects that they believe they are.
How do you view your people? Are they cogs? Human resources? Viewing them as anything less than they actually are will lead to many of the problems that riddle our organizations.
This post was originally published on the Charleston Southern University School of Business Blog.
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Dr. Darin Gerdes is an associate professor and director of graduate programs in the School of Business at Charleston Southern University. His interdisciplinary background includes undergraduate degrees in government and psychology from Liberty University, a master of business administration, a master of arts in public policy and a PhD in organizational leadership from Regent University. He designed the master of arts in organizational leadership program at Charleston Southern University.
