Posted on Nov 25, 2015
How often does the Fundamental Attribution Error affect your leadership style or relationships?
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Posted in these groups: 
Psychology
Leadership
Psychology Leadership
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 7
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In Leadership positions, I've always made time to talk one on one with those I'd be working with. That helped me gauge between how people are specific situations.
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Rather than trying to climb into people's heads I look at the performance and try to evaluate against the performance objectives. Set clear objectives/outcomes and measure to them. As long as their "style" is not disruptive or harmful to the outcomes I don't think about it too much. Over 30 years in fortune 100 companies I have had a lot of very different people work for me, with me and I have worked for a lot of different people. Attempting to mind read and crawl into the "cause" of people's behavior/disposition is unwise. Talking with them about their behavior and performance is appropriate, trying dissect their behavior and personality is unwise.
I know it is popular these days to try to "understand" everyone and many want to try to take every background issue of a person into account. That is not realistic. I have seen people (in professional settings) do things that would curl your toenails. I cannot explain why the do it but they do. People are the total sum of their life experiences and how they have dealt with them.
I try to treat people like I would want to be treated. It is not more complicated than that. Once people cross a line though, there are consequences to poor behavior. Your responsibility to your leader is to make him/her look good/smart for having you around by doing your job, hitting your performance goals and not displaying poor conduct.
Another example would be, why is John always late to work? John could have sleep disorders, he could be gaming all night, he could have a drug or alcohol issue or a dozen other reasons. I would evaluate the performance. He is late, regularly and that is not acceptable performance. Coach/council him. If he comes clean about issues then you refer him to get help. There will be a consequence for the behavior (warning/suspension/termination). It is not fair for all of the others that make it on time every day to have to do his work/cover for him etc.
I know it is popular these days to try to "understand" everyone and many want to try to take every background issue of a person into account. That is not realistic. I have seen people (in professional settings) do things that would curl your toenails. I cannot explain why the do it but they do. People are the total sum of their life experiences and how they have dealt with them.
I try to treat people like I would want to be treated. It is not more complicated than that. Once people cross a line though, there are consequences to poor behavior. Your responsibility to your leader is to make him/her look good/smart for having you around by doing your job, hitting your performance goals and not displaying poor conduct.
Another example would be, why is John always late to work? John could have sleep disorders, he could be gaming all night, he could have a drug or alcohol issue or a dozen other reasons. I would evaluate the performance. He is late, regularly and that is not acceptable performance. Coach/council him. If he comes clean about issues then you refer him to get help. There will be a consequence for the behavior (warning/suspension/termination). It is not fair for all of the others that make it on time every day to have to do his work/cover for him etc.
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COL Vincent Stoneking
Cpl Jeff N. , I am a big fan and follower of behavioral management (which it sounds like you are as well). It's really a simple, old school, approach. There are certain tasks you need to do, under certain conditions, to certain standards. Do those, and we're groovy. Those tasks include such interpersonal things as "contribute to group projects" and "communicate professionally with peers", but they are just tasks with observable behaviors. They happen under various conditions (for my employees, that tends to be office work, working with IT folks and line of business employees, often in a political and stressful environment, but without any physical hardship).
If they are done to standard, we're done here. If not, we will discuss what the expectations are and ensure you have the knowledge of both the tasks and the standards. If skills are needed, we will work on those as well. If that fails, I will wish them best of luck in their future endeavors.
As far as what you think, or believe internally, it has little value to how I manage. I remember a time when I put a lot of effort into trying to analyze why people in the workplace did the things they did. It was frustrating, and always inviting me to do things that would run afoul of labor laws.
I'm much better now. I make a baseline assumption along the lines of "they are doing the best they know how, to do the job as they understand it" and move on from there. I've had that assumption invalidated a few times, but by focusing on the actual behaviors rather than my assessments of internal states, I been in a much better position to wish them luck in their future endeavors.
If they are done to standard, we're done here. If not, we will discuss what the expectations are and ensure you have the knowledge of both the tasks and the standards. If skills are needed, we will work on those as well. If that fails, I will wish them best of luck in their future endeavors.
As far as what you think, or believe internally, it has little value to how I manage. I remember a time when I put a lot of effort into trying to analyze why people in the workplace did the things they did. It was frustrating, and always inviting me to do things that would run afoul of labor laws.
I'm much better now. I make a baseline assumption along the lines of "they are doing the best they know how, to do the job as they understand it" and move on from there. I've had that assumption invalidated a few times, but by focusing on the actual behaviors rather than my assessments of internal states, I been in a much better position to wish them luck in their future endeavors.
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Cpl Jeff N.
COL Vincent Stoneking . I am a big believer of behavioral management starting at the interview process and going all the way to performance management. When you start trying to climb into peoples head about why they do what they do you set yourself up for becoming a babysitter. If you have 10 people working for you there could be 10 different "why's". I don't worry about the why's too much. If an employee has an issue I direct them where to get help but that doesn't mean they can fail to perform to standards. If you get wrapped up in the why and start treating people differently you set yourself up for "favoritism" complaints.
I do not expect my boss to accept failure or poor behavior on my part. My job is to hit objectives (mine are around revenues, profits, CRM etc), deliver results, play well in the sandbox with others and make him/her look smart for keeping me around. Once you become convinced you should get special treatment because of your shortcomings/behaviors, you are committing "careericide" more so at higher levels of the organization.
I do not expect my boss to accept failure or poor behavior on my part. My job is to hit objectives (mine are around revenues, profits, CRM etc), deliver results, play well in the sandbox with others and make him/her look smart for keeping me around. Once you become convinced you should get special treatment because of your shortcomings/behaviors, you are committing "careericide" more so at higher levels of the organization.
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I have never heard of this before but after reading the definition and example, I am sure I have been guilty of it even though I cannot recall any specific examples. I think it is human nature to do this based on our own observations and experiences thinking they are almost always true. I do know that my "default" setting in dealing with Soldiers that failed to do the proper thing was to see if the unit or chain of command failed them first. I did not automatically assume they were solely at fault. I would almost always look and see if we clearly identified the standards, expectations, etc. I do know that many people I served with did not always take that view. A great question and although I am not in a direct leadership position anymore, this is something of which I should be aware.
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SGT (Join to see)
I share your views, sir. Sometimes, Soldiers have looked at me crazy when they've done something wrong and I first ask questions - "what were trying to do?" or "how did this happen?" Some Leaders, in my opinion, are too quick to reprimand and too slow to communicate effectively to figure out how to educate the subordinate for future reference.
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Capt Seid Waddell
COL Jon Thompson, I had never heard of the term either, but it makes sense to question whether a problem is due to a lack of understanding/knowledge or due to an attitude problem. I always tried to determine that first because the corrective action is very different in either case.
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Age, mentoring, the wisdom of others, a graduate degree in psychology, and experience with people has helped me avoid FAE in many situations. I cannot and would not remove the human factor from who I am , consequently, I will be somewhat effected by FAE despite my best efforts.
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Great topic SGT (Join to see) I am curious if it is my FAE or the other person's FAE which cause disconnect in our communication?
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Odd question, Why are you asking?
Typically work tasks are based on duties required by the position. The person's effectiveness at the required tasks are impacted by background education and experience.
Typically work tasks are based on duties required by the position. The person's effectiveness at the required tasks are impacted by background education and experience.
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I would say when subordinate made mistakes, it was do to growing up and making mistakes as a leader.
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