Aren’t I Special
You have seen the character on TV and you may have the displeasure of sitting alongside one or two of them at work. They are The Entitled, self-serving people who feel they are owed special treatment, even if they haven’t done anything to deserve it. Run for the hills: these characters are more likely to be the source of workplace conflict and less likely to be satisfied with their jobs.
Writing in the Journal of Organizational Behaviour, Paul Harvey (U of New Hampshire) and Mark Martinko (Florida State U) say their research shows that people who feel they deserve preferential treatment are more likely to be the first to take credit when things go well and to blame others when things go wrong.
The authors say that, true to the stereotype, young Gen Y workers are more likely than others to have a self-inflated view of their worth and have trouble listening to negative feedback. They expect a high level of respect and reward that is unrelated to their actual experience or performance, and therefore are bitter when they are not treated like royalty.
The way to deal with The Entitled is to document areas of responsibility and lines of reporting in order to remove as much ambiguity as possible. That way, employees with entitlement attitudes are less likely to form biased judgments.
An empirical examination of the role of attributions in psychological entitlement and its outcomes, Paul Harvey and Mark J. Martinko; Journal of Organizational Behavior (Vol. 30, Issue 4 , Pages 459 – 476)
Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com
photo credit: ChrisB in SEA