Several years back, I was working at a place where apathy amongst the workforce is fairly high. The mindset there can be summarized as "tell me where to stand and where to face!" In other words, there is virtually no initiative; no one wants to think anymore and people will only do what they are asked to. I even find myself behaving in a similar manner after being there for a while! I didn't understand why or what is the cause of such apathetic feelings amongst so many at that time. I didn't until about a year ago, where I noticed the same apathetic feeling arising in me after i was being blamed for something unfairly.
When a manager is not willing to accept responsibility and diverts blame to his/her people when things goes wrong, even when everyone were just following instructions from the manager, his/her people will soon learn that their manager will use them as human shield or punching bags when things goes wrong. I am very certain that such a manager will stand up to accept credits for what the team has accomplished instead of diverting the credit back to the team. Combined this immature self centered behaviour with the tendency to blame others unfairly for everything including such things as not doing something that has just come to light, and his/her people will now feel that their manager is not predictable. Over time, people will come to feel that they are not appreciated and can not win with this manager. At this point, people will start giving up and apathy will set in.
I am very sure that this is not the only cause of apathy amongst workforce. Actions that lead to people not having a sense of belonging will lead to apathy.
10 comments:
Thank you very much for your encouraging comment. I will certainly try my best to post as regularly as I can.
Jelas ada banyak tahu tentang hal ini. Saya pikir Anda membuat beberapa poin baik di Fitur juga. Tetap bekerja, pekerjaan yang besar!
Having just attended a meeting in Vietnam where translators were involved, I felt that it would be good to translate this as well. This is the comment (slightly modified from what was produced by Google Translate).
"Clearly there is much to know about this topic. I think you make some good points in the feature as well. Keep working, great job!
Thank you very much for your comment.
In a competitive economy it is very important for leaders to be able to lift the performance of everyone in the organisation hence the importance of this topic. Do share with us your insight in this topic.
Again here is the translation slightly modified from Google Translate.
Terima kasih banyak atas komentar anda.
Dalam ekonomi kompetitif, sangat penting bagi para pemimpin mengangkat prestasi setiap orang dalam organisasi maka pentingnya topik ini. Sila berkongsi dengan kami wawasan anda dalam topik ini.
你完成了一些很好的点那里。我做了主题搜索，发现大部分人将与您的博客有相同的看法。
As before the comment as translated by Google Translate is as follows.
"You have done some good points there. I did a topic search, found that most people will have the same blog with your views."
And here is my response: Thank you for leaving a comment. Do share with us any other thoughtful view(s) or insight that you may have come across.
Unfortunately, I don't know Chinese well enough to understand if the Google translation for my comment is accurate and have not included them here!
How can i ask you for more details? Great post needda know more...
You may post your question as a comment. Please note that I do not have any formal background in psychology or management and entries in this blog are merely from my experience and observation. Will answer you the best i can though.
It’s onerous to find educated folks on this topic, however you sound like you realize what you’re talking about! Thanks
Thank you very much for your kind comment. It got me to read the article again and strangely I cannot recall how that apathetic feeling feels like anymore.
I am currently observing the difference between several teams lead by folks with very different mindset and hopefully it will lead to another interesting insight into this topic.
I presume those of us looking at this topic of apathy in work places would also be interested to find a solution. Do take a look at Simon Sinek's second book "Why Leaders Eat Last." Some of these are explained in the 2 videos.
Simon's TED talk: http://go.ted.com/YW7
Simon at 99U http://vimeo.com/79899786
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