There are many strategies that Dentists and Dental Office Managers can adopt to empower their employees at work, but what strategies actually work?
Some strategies meant to motivate and empower employees in your dental office can backfire. Recent research from Michigan State University and Ohio State University suggested as much.
Employee empowerment paves a path for positive environments
“People tend to think of empowerment in uniformly positive ways,” said Nicholas Hays, study co-author and associate professor of management in MSU’s Eli Broad College of Business. “After all, humans crave independence and control so giving it to them at work should be a good thing.”
However, Hays also noted that as employees become more autonomous, thanks in part to the move toward working remotely, supervisors have a more challenging path.
In a paper published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Hays — along with Broad College of Business colleague, Russell E. Johnson, MSU Foundation Professor of management, and Hun Whee Lee, assistant professor of management at Ohio State University and lead author of the study – wrote that when properly implemented, empowerment initiatives can lead to heightened motivation, productivity, and creativity.
However, whether these initiatives are effective at all levels of the organization depends on the management style of the person implementing them.
Hays found that superiors who value being respected will respond to empowerment initiatives by, in turn, empowering their workers. But superiors who value being in charge will, somewhat ironically, respond to empowerment initiatives by tightly controlling, dominating, and managing their employees.
The researchers conducted three separate studies measuring outcomes of empowerment initiatives that considered personality trait data and leader behaviour.
Be a leader that is open to feedback and promote success
“We found that leaders who really care about being respected by their subordinates tend to react to empowerment initiatives by ‘paying it forward’ with certain behaviours. This could include things like allowing subordinates to set their own goals or decide how to accomplish tasks,” Lee said. “In contrast, leaders who prefer to be in control and tell others what to do tend to react to these initiatives by doubling down on their desire for control. This is when we see things like micromanaging or setting specific goals for subordinates.”
If an employee is uncomfortable with a superior’s leadership style, the researchers say it may be beneficial to have a candid conversation between worker and boss.
“Many leaders are receptive to feedback and want to provide employees what they need to succeed at work,” Hays said. “If that doesn’t work, looking for different groups to join — either within an organization and with a different supervisor or even by changing organizations altogether — is sometimes the best option.”
Hays also offered insight into what he believes the paper’s findings may indicate for employees in real time.
“To the extent that leaders prioritize dominance and being in charge, they may go out of their way to micromanage employees by, for example, monitoring their online status and requesting frequent check-ins,” Hays said. “I wouldn’t necessarily characterize this as abusing an empowerment initiative, but certainly could rub employees the wrong way.”
The synergistic traits between building a great team an empowering your employees are important in workplace culture within Dental Offices.
