Employee behaviour is all a matter of executive distress

New Zealand and Australian business executives say they want constructive work environments, but create passive-aggressive cultures that reinforce conventionality and blame avoidance, says new research.

Poor leadership teaches employees to push decisions upwards, make popular rather than necessary decisions and gain status at the expense of others, says Shaun McCarthy, chairman of organisational development consultancy Human Synergistics Australasia.

This week, it presented results from an 18-month study of 51 organisations and almost 8400 individuals to the Australasian Institute of Banking and Finance conference in Wellington.

The results reveal that senior managers say they want employees to think ahead, pursue excellence, work for a sense of accomplishment, enjoy their work, take moderate risks and accept challenging tasks.

However, executive behaviour creates a culture where employees see rules as more important than ideas, switch priorities to please others, avoid blame, follow orders even when they're wrong, push decisions upward and avoid rocking the boat.

And the prevailing business culture encourages people to play politics to gain influence, please authority figures, maintain unquestioned authority and an image of superiority, never appear to lose and compete rather than co-operate.

The good news for New Zealand business leaders is that they perform better than their Australian counterparts in 28 out of the 31 causal factors that affect corporate culture.

However, they are better than the global average on only 15 of the 31 factors.

In particular, New Zealand scores worse than the global average, but better than Australia, on all the skills and qualities of leadership.

However, it scores better than both on communication skills and qualities.

www.hsnz.co.nz/