Research reveals a surefire way for managers to earn trust from their employees

Appearances are important for any leader, and no manager wants to be perceived as unfair by their employees. Of course, everyone makes mistakes (even office bosses), and even the most disciplined of managers will occasionally have a grumpy day or make a questionable decision.

When that happens, what’s the best way to gain the “benefit of the doubt” from one’s employees? According to a new study just released by the University of Notre Dame, there are no shortcuts.

Only managers who consistently show a genuine concern for employees’ needs and wishes the majority of the time should count on getting a mulligan in their workers’ eyes.

The theory of justice criteria

These findings are based on a theory pertaining to employee/authority figure interactions known as justice criteria. In succinct terms, the theory states employees evaluate or judge every single interaction with their boss based on intentions more than actual actions. Put in another way, it isn’t what you do, but why you do it. 

Examples of factors an employee will usually consider according to the justice criteria include “does my boss treat all team members with respect, dignity, and decency?” or “Are all employees granted a voice and given truthful and transparent explanations?”

“We found that prosocially motivated supervisors — or those who focus on their employees’ needs — are more likely to adhere to justice rules than those motivated by self-interest,” says lead study author Cindy Muir (Zapata), associate professor of management at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. “This implies that employees may only care about motives insofar as they impact justice. However, employees also care about and rely on their impressions of their supervisors’ motives as they think about their fairness. Compared with supervisors who are considered to be self-interested, those perceived to be prosocially motivated are regarded as fairer, even after accounting for how much they adhere to traditional justice best practices. And when justice is low, employees will give them the benefit of the doubt.”

All of that boils down to this: managers must make it clear to their employees that they are in their corner, and consistently at that. If not, every error or judgment will likely be interpreted as an oppressive act, not an innocent mistake.

“We talk about objective justice standards as if they are an easy thing for supervisors to live up to at all times in all situations,” she continues. “But supervisors are fallible human beings who, inadvertently or not, are likely to end up falling short. They might make decisions without granting employees voice, they might gloss over or fail to explain their decisions, or they might engage in curt interactions. Our work shows that prosocial motives can help buffer the typical downsides associated with these missteps. In one of our studies, the prosocial effect is so strong that it seems to substitute for high justice.”

These findings were made possible throughout six distinct experiments involving over 1,000 people.

So, if managers perceived to care about their employees are viewed favorably after a mistake, does the opposite also hold up? Do bosses seen as totally motivated by self-interest fall even further in their employees’ eyes after an error? Surprisingly, study authors say that didn’t exactly line up.

“We assumed self-interest coupled with low justice behavior would elicit a stronger response from employees, but it did not,” Muir says. “People do respond negatively, but we assumed there would be more outrage, that there might be a sense among employees that things would never get better, but we find that the response is no different than what you would expect from either self-interest or low justice separately.”

In summation, the research team believes their work has revealed an overlooked albeit important aspect of fostering more cohesive relationships between leaders and staff. It isn’t enough to simply enact the latest best practices, especially if such changes or actions are perceived as insincere.

“If we want people to feel fairly treated, we tend to focus on ensuring that our rules, policies and procedures follow the objective standards or best practices we know to be regarded as fair,” Muir concludes. “Of course, our work does not contradict this approach, but it does suggest that focusing solely on this kind of objective criteria for justice misses an important component of what makes employees feel fairly treated.”

The full study can be found here and is set to be published in a future edition of the Journal of Applied Psychology.