Why are Managers Hesitant to Praise Subordinates?

The dictionary meaning of the word praising refers to the express of warm admiration or approval or glorify in words. When relating the word praise in to the question above, we can interpret praising as an expression of admiration by managers or organizations for a job well done by an employee. Some organizations parsing does not occur due various reasons. Reasons for non-praising are explained below:

• Managers are too busy with their schedules and do not have time to spend on praising employees-

Managers are responsible for running the department. They have much work to carry out and they have many goals to achieve.  Need to achieve performance targets make them really busy with their work. Once they start working they have many elements in their things to do list and when prioritizing work, praising employees fall in the bottom of the list since they have many other important tasks to carry out. As a result managers do not praise the employees for their good jobs and this avoids a chance of making the employee motivated.

• Managers solely focus on employee’s weaknesses and correct those to meet the target rather than finding out strengths of employees-

Managers are focused on achieving their performance targets because their rewards are based on the output of their department. Since they want to achieve their performance target they tend to identify mistakes done by their subordinates and always correct them and push them to achieve the goal. In this process they tend to identify only those mistakes committed by their subordinates since managers think subordinates are born to make mistakes. They do not emphasize on good work done by employees.

• The tone of the management team is set from above. (Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness, 2009)

Each and every senior manager must have had a subordinate life where he was working under another manager. During that time if they have not received praises from their senior managers, they would not understand the value of praises. Since they have not received praises from their superiors they will not be bothered to praise their subordinates. Praising works as a chain where managers inherit the habit of praising from their superiors and they pass it to their subordinates.

• Managers have not developed the habit of letting people know how much they are appreciated (Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness, 2009)-

If someone commits a good act as a routine work in their life it reflects that it has been a habit which was inherited to him by this social environment. Some managers lack this habit because they are not used to letting others know how much they are appreciated.  Since they do not have the habit of praising people even in the working environment they will not be bothered to appreciate good jobs done by their subordinates.

• Organizational culture-

Individual behavior in the organization is shaped by the values and norms of the organization. Some organizations consider employees as just another input and they can be motivated if they are paid well. If an organization as an unfriendly and a rigid culture, employees of that organization will not be exceed the limits set by the organizational culture and become polite by praising their employees. As a result there will not be any praising activities occurring.

• Individual attitudes-

Individual behavior is also affected by their personal attitudes. If a managers is a person who has a negative attitude towards praising and if he does not feel the value of praising personally he will not praise their subordinates

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