As management has taken on a more pastoral air in recent years, it has become more common to monitor the emotional wellbeing of employees.  A recent study suggests that monitoring the ego of your team can go a long way to preventing any ethical breaches.

The research suggests that when people feel entitled, they’re much more likely to behave badly.  Such employees are driven by self-interest, and especially the desire to present the right impression to others.

Measuring entitlement

Indeed, so pronounced is the impact that the authors urge organizations to start measuring how entitled employees feel, not only when employed but also during the recruitment process.

They reveal that the propensity for unethical behavior is higher when the employees personally support the organization, and especially when they share common goals.  Under such circumstances, the employee convinces themselves that their actions are in fact moral and that their actions will secure their status in the organization.

The importance of self-image was fundamental to the findings, with entitled individuals having significant concerns about how others perceive them.  As such, they place great importance on receiving public recognition, and will go to unethical lengths to get it.

“We have found people who feel entitled may exhibit a greater willingness to engage in unethical behaviour to maintain what they think is their high status. These people are more willing to take risks and shortcuts. They are driven by status and want to get what they see as their just rewards quicker. They want to meet targets, and don’t mind bending the rules to get there,” the authors say.

“This means organisations must ensure that they put mechanisms in place that reduce the likelihood of entitled people breaking the rules, as this behaviour can have a big impact on their reputation. This could be measuring levels of entitlement among employees during selection and performance evaluation procedures to determine which employees leaders should focus their attention on. Managers could also make sure their workers clearly understand the relationship between performance and rewards so that inflated expectations are reduced.”