Entitlement Doesn’t Look Good On You
Entitlement can catch like fire. It isn’t targeted within any specific generation, demographic, or job position—it happens in almost every part of your company. People will claim their rights, or even go as far as stating that they are the top and the favorite, but that doesn’t give someone the floor to exude entitlement.
As a manager, you’ll be faced with creeping attitudes of entitlement from your employees who feel pressured, competitive, anxious, unsure, spoiled, or even elevated about their positions and relationships. It can stem from being secure in their positions to being insecure on where their importance lies within the company.
Let’s cover how to push through entitlement and encourage your employees so they do not feel the need to express themselves this way:
- Come face to face. Never be passive or minimize the effect that entitlement has on your staff. You never want people to feel diminished or lowered because other employees create more importance for themselves over the team. Respectfully pull them aside and see how they feel about their job, and search for insight and insecurities they may not see in themselves. Showing your employee that you notice something is not right with their attitude will hopefully open their eyes to their actions.
- Clean up expectations. It’s safe to say, that people act entitled because they think they are deserving of more than they are receiving. The best way to approach the situation is to lay down the expectations on how they can get what they want/need. No one is handing out promotions here, so set the standards for how they should work to accomplish what they want.
- Be on point with appreciation. Let your employees know they are on the right track by appreciating their hard work. Some people think they should get a “Great job!” for only meeting minimum requirements—don’t let the bar fall; everyone needs a good push in the right direction.
Catching bad habits of your team is always difficult to deal with—it’s a lot on a managers shoulders. Don’t let the small issues snowball into a very big issue. You’ve got the wisdom and the skills to help your staff develop in the right direction and break bad habits. So share it and use it!
Finally, discover the benefits WorkCompass can bring to your team with our performance management software by requesting a demo with one of our team.
