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The
Insubordinate Subordinate: Dealing With Workplace Rebellion
"The
ability to work well with people is as purchasable a commodity
as coffee or sugar, but I'll pay more for it than any ability
under the sun." John D. Rockefeller
Yerke
is a Finnish expatriate who recently accepted a position as head
of the IT department for a large computer peripherals manufacturing
company. He is dumbfounded when, two weeks after his arrival,
his boss complains that Yerke is a troublemaker who openly questions
his decisions and challenges his authority. Pamela, a stellar
employee, was recently disciplined for insurbordination because
she called in sick after her request for personal leave to attend
her daughter's out-of-state wedding was denied. Raymond makes
more sales than the rest of his team put together; however, while
his customers love him, three sales managers have quit because
of his abusive language and disrespectful attitude toward them.
Insubordination,
broadly defined as an unwillingness to submit to authority either
through an open refusal to obey an order or through a failure
to carry one out, is a common problem in the workplace. Examples
of insurbordination (or attempts to undermine managerial authority),
include the following:
* actively
challenging or criticizing a superior's orders
*
interfering with management
*
showing open disrespect toward a supervisor
*
making threats or using coercion or physical violence
*
using abusive language or making malicious statements
*
ignoring instructions
Discipline
is often an appropriate response to insurbodination. However,
as can be seen from the above examples, there are varying reasons
for, and degrees of, rebellious or disrespectful behavior. Before
disciplinary action us taken, it is important to consider a number
of factors that will help you decide upon a response that fits
the situation. Some of these factors include the reasonableness
of the request, the circumstances surrounding it, the employee's
work history, and how others have been treated for similar behavior
Out
of Bounds Orders
Some
flexibility with respect to insubordination may be in order if
the employee has a legitimate reason for refusing to carry out
the request. Even though employees are rarely allowed to challenge
authority, there are some instances in which such a refusal may
be justified.
Consider
the following situations:
1.
carrying out the order would endanger the health, welfare, or
safety of the employee or other employees. An employee may rightfully
refuse to carry out an order in situations where the manager orders
the employee to work under conditions the employee believes pose
an immediate danger of death and severe injury, and the employee
believes there is insufficient time or opportunity to get management
to correct the hazardous condition.
2.
carrying out the order involves an illegal act. Employers cannot
ask an employee to engage in illegal activity. I once conducted
a wrongful termination investigation during which an employee
was fired because he refused to pick up illegal drugs for his
supervisor.
3.
the order is accompanied by religious, racist or sexist slurs.
Ideally, the employee would comply with the order and then file
a separate offensive behavior complaint. However, certainly some
leniency should be allowed for the employee who rebelliously responds
to personally insulting behavior.
Obviously,
discipline or termination is inappropriate in any of the above
situations. If it occurs, it can possibly lead to a successful
wrongful discharge, retaliatory discharge, or discrimination lawsuit.
In most cases, however, insubordination is the proper subject
of discipline.
Do
Your Duty
Generally
speaking, employees cannot decide for themselves which instructions
they will or will not obey. Companies should make this clear in
their policies and procedures, by stating in their employee handbook
or personnel manual that insubordination is against company policy
and that violation of the policy will subject the person to disciplinary
action, up to and including termination. Your policy should also
state that, if an employee has a complaint about management behavior,
they should follow the appropriate employee grievance process.
Let's
assume now that an employee has engaged in challenging or disrespectful
behavior to a valid order. The next factor to consider is the
circumstances. For example:
* Was
the order direct, clear and unambiguous?
*
Did the employee violate a published policy or work rule?
* Did
the employee recognize that s/he was breaking a rule?
* Was
the employee aware of the consequences of the conduct?
* Was
the employee aware of exceptions to the published rule or policy?
*
Is the policy or rule itself the problem?
Considering
the above factors sheds a different light on all three of our
colleagues from the first paragraph - Yerke, Pamela, and Raymond.
Yerke, for example, had no awareness at all that he was behaving
inappropriately; coming from a culture that is much less deferential
to status or power differences, it was a natural behavior for
him to speak up or disagree with his superior. In fact, counseling
him on how his behavior was perceived not only improved the relationship
with his boss, it helped him understand his subordinates, whose
reluctance to question or challenge his ideas he had been interpreting
as a lack of motivation and initiative. Pamela and Raymond are
similar in that both were aware of the rules and their violations
of them. However, their work histories, and the rules in question,
were dramatically different. While Pamela's response to her denied
leave was inappropriate, her manager's decision to deny her personal
leave request was also questionable. Other alternatives, such
as making her responsible for finding a substitute, working overtime
in advance, or being available by phone, might have been more
realistic. As for Raymond, his consistent and willful disrespect
not only adversely impacts the morale and retention rate of the
rest of the sales team, the fact that he has received numerous
warnings (with no real consequences or follow-through) can put
the company at legal risk if they discipline another employee
for similar behavior.
Fitting
the Punishment to the "Crime"
Most
employers have a written progressive discipline policy to deal
with conduct problems. This policy is most effective when it contains
flexible language, doesn't link any conduct to a specific disciplinary
response, and allows the company to consider a number of factors
in determining the appropriate discipline. Some of the factors
that should be considered are:
1)
Employee's record - Does the employee have a prior record of similar
offenses, or was this a first offense? Does the employee otherwise
have a good conduct record and a history of satisfactory performance?
2)
Consequences of the act - Were the consequences such that there
would be financial or other liability to the company? Would the
act affect the company or the employee's ability to carry out
assigned responsibilities?
3)
Mitigating factors - Were there intervening factors that either
caused or had some effect on the employee's violation of the company's
disciplinary standards?
4)
Attitude - Is the type of discipline contemplated necessary in
order to convince the employee that the conduct cannot be tolerated?
5)
Past practice - Is the discipline to be administered consistent
with the discipline administered in prior similar cases?
After
considering the above circumstances, the following steps can be
used as guidelines when imposing an oral or written warning for
subordination:
·
Inform the employee that he or she has engaged in specific conduct
that is unacceptable and that certain conduct is expected of the
employee. Refer to the specific rule or policy.
·
Explain that the improper conduct must stop.
·
Discuss the negative consequences that will occur if the employee
fails to change unacceptable behavior and the possible positive
consequences of changing the improper behavior.
·
Explore the reasons for the unacceptable behavior.
·
Develop an action plan that you and the employee agree on to change
the unacceptable behavior.
·
Document, document, document.
Dealing
With the Chronic Insurbordinate
Let's
face it; some employees are always difficult. If the insubordination
is committed by a constant troublemaker, it can be hard to keep
your cool and deal effectively with the incident at hand. Keep
these rules of thumb in mind:
* Base
the confrontation with the worker only on his/her job performance.
Never allow any personal prejudices, comments, observations, or
suggestions to get in the way of the counseling/discipline meeting.
* Make
certain that the employee knows exactly what you're saying. Allow
no room for confusion or misunderstanding; ask the employee to
paraphrase what the two of you have discussed. Make your policies,
and their application, consistent and exact.
*
Don't make value judgments. Stick to the behavior in question,
not what you think of the employee personally. * Don't belabor
a point. Make your point once and go on.
* Don't
make idle or thinly veiled threats. Making threats only serves
to strain relations even more.
The
Bottom Line
Research
supports Rockefeller's high opinion of good interpersonal skills;
managers who fail do so because of the inability to successfully
handle the "people" side of managing. Insurbordination can cause
even the coolest communicator to blow a fuse and let personal
feelings influence discipline decisions. Having an effective progressive
discipline policy, using a discipline checklist, and conducting
an investigation of the reasons for the inappropriate behavior
(prior to any disciplinary action) can help managers avoid making
a bad situation worse. Managers who co so not only create value
for their organizations, they build value for themselves.
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WORKRELATIONSHIP
TRIVIA: Four out of ten employees will have personal problems
that impact work at some point in their lives. One out of every
20 is suffering from a major depression - right now. A relationship
with an Employee Assistance Program can be a cost-effective way
to minimize this impact and help valuable employees get back on
track. Be sure your managers are trained on when and how to refer
them for help.
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