Critical for leaders to have self-control

Obituaries
Self-control is critical in the workplace and more so, in those in positions of leadership. Leaders, male and female alike, ought not only to demonstrate self control and ethical behaviour, but to also encourage, insist on, coach and assist their staff to follow suit. A recent review by a group of world renowned professors, Kai Chi Yam et al, identified a few consequences that are consistently linked to having lower self-control at work:

Self-control is critical in the workplace and more so, in those in positions of leadership. Leaders, male and female alike, ought not only to demonstrate self control and ethical behaviour, but to also encourage, insist on, coach and assist their staff to follow suit. A recent review by a group of world renowned professors, Kai Chi Yam et al, identified a few consequences that are consistently linked to having lower self-control at work:

women & leadership with Maggie Mzumara

Lower self-control can lead employees to be more distracted

Increased unethical/deviant behaviour

Studies have found that when self-control resources are low, nurses are more likely to be rude to patients, tax accountants are more likely to engage in fraud, and employees in general engage in various forms of unethical behaviour, such as lying to their supervisors, stealing office supplies, and so on, and so on.

Decreased pro-social behaviour

Depleted self-control makes employees less likely to speak up if they see problems at work, less likely to help fellow employees, and less likely to engage in corporate volunteerism.

Reduced job performance

Lower self-control can lead employees to spend less time on difficult tasks, exert less effort at work, be more distracted (e.g surfing the internet in working time), and generally perform worse than they would had their self-control been normal.

Negative leadership styles

Perhaps what is most concerning is that leaders with lower self-control often exhibit counter-productive leadership styles. They are more likely to verbally abuse their followers (rather than using positive means to motivate them), more likely to build weak relationships with their followers.

The review makes it clear that helping employees maintain self-control is an important task if organisations want to be more effective and ethical. Fortunately, three key factors have been identified that can help leaders foster self-control among employees and mitigate the negative effects of losing self-control.

First, sleep appears to have an amazing restorative effect on self-control. One study found that leaders who slept well at night (defined as having minimal interruptions to sleep) were much more likely to exercise their self-control and refrain from displaying abusive supervision, such as yelling and cursing at low-performing subordinates, compared to their counterparts who did not sleep well. Modern organisations often require employees to work beyond traditional office hours in the name of increased productivity. But this could be counter-productive and lead to negative workplace behaviours due to employees lacking self-control. Instead, organisations should be mindful about how long work hours can impact employees’ behaviour and wellbeing.

Second, “service with a smile” might not always pay. Service-oriented organisations often force employees to smile in front of customers. While this might please customers in the short-term, it can cause other organisational problems. Dropping this practice perhaps is not be a practical option, but companies should consider training employees to tap into the emotions they display. For example, another study showed that physicians who engaged in perspective taking and felt genuine empathy toward their patients did not experience reduced self-control and its associated negative workplace behaviours such as burnout, whereas physicians who were forced to fake empathic behaviours toward patients later reported increased burnout and lower job satisfaction. Service-oriented employees may also benefit from engaging in more perspective-taking rather than faking their emotions.

Third, creating the right environment may help prevent some of the negative behaviours associated with lower self-control. For example, employees with low self-control were no more likely to engage in deviant behaviour when organisations promoted an ethical culture — displaying the company’s code of conduct where employees could see it made them less tempted to behave unethically. This type of intervention tends to be very effective in the short-term.

Ultimately, in summary the keys to avoiding self-control failures are to: 1) allow the body to rest and restore self-control, 2) re-examine existing organisational policies that might inadvertently reduce employees’ self-control and 3) create a culture that deters negative behaviours in moments of reduced self-control.

*(Review quoted above was undertaken by Kai Chi (Sam) Yam, an assistant professor of management and organisation at the National University of Singapore; Huiwen Lian is an associate professor of management at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology/University of Kentucky; D. Lance Ferris is an associate professor of management at the Michigan State University; and Douglas Brown is a professor of industrial and organisational psychology at the University of Waterloo.)

Maggie Mzumara is a media, communication and leadership strategist. She is founder of the Success in Stilettos, a platform dedicated to the development of women leadership. She is also founder and publisher of the Harare South Western News — a community newspaper founded to empower and lend a voice to under-represented communities in high and medium-density suburbs in Harare. She can be reached on email: [email protected] Twitter @magsmzumara