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Attribution

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Joe Query has o problem. He is the division general manager/or

Chemtek's Electrolytic Products Division, and his division has

failed to meet both the total shipments target and the cash jlow

target for the last quarter. Today his stomach is in knots, He has to

explain the division's performance to the corporate opera:ing

committee., which includes the chairman, who is not in the habit of

viewing xuhpar performance leniently. Wailing in the corporate

conference room, Joe ponders last quarter's efforts.

"I'm really not a had manager." he thinks. "In the last joitr

years, I've achieved all but one of my targets. Why, las! year my

division was 4% ahead of target on cash flow. This quarter was

tough. I've had a heck of a job in bringing in the new photographic

products plant, We were really in danger of losing thai one, aid I

219

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222 THE NEW LEADERSHIP PARADIGM ATTRIBUTION 223

Uncontrollable

Stable Unstable Stable Unstabl* • •:."•/. ' jfrii

Locu* Typical Intermedia!* internal Ef(ort g))ort <-•' Ability ' i Mood '• '

i ,

External Supervisor Co-workers -. i i. '"'. . ' • t J :'! Task ' . . ,,..

Oilficulty ; : LuoK .,

Figure 11.1. Types of Attributions: Locus, Stability, and Control SOURCE: D. A. Gioia and H. P. Sims. Jr., "Cognitive-Behavior Connections: Attribution and Verbal

Behavior in Leader-Subordinate Interactions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

37 (1986): IW.

"I succeeded and will probably continue to succeed in the future breause I am good at this task." (ability)

"I succeeded because I always try very hard." (consistent effort) "I succeeded

this time because I tried very hard on this project." [inconsistent effort) •

An employee might use external factors to explain failure:

'

"This job was just impossible." (task difficulty)

"That's the way the ball bounces. I t ' l l bounce my way next time." (luck) "1

could have gotten iulone if he had just let me do it my way." (supervision)

Attributions and Management

Types of Attributions

Weiner and his associates have provided the most recognized frame-

work for describing types of attributions. They describe three dimen-

sions: locus, stability, and control. Gioia and Sims have adapted this

framework to organizational situations. Locus refers to whether an at-

tribution is external (the cause is outside the person) or internal. Stability

refers to whether the attribution is static or dynamic. Control refers to

whether the events are within the command or outside the command of

the person. Combining these dimensions results in a model with eight

different categories of attributions (see Figure 11.1). For example, if an

employee sees his failure to be the result of a singular lack of effort, then

this attribution would be classified as internal, unstable, and

controllable. If he attributes the failure to persistent task difficulty, then

the attribution would be classified as external, stable, and uncontrollable

by the subordinate.

From a managerial viewpoint, perhaps the most important dimension

is locus; that is, is the cause attributed to an internal or an external

cause? For example, a person might attribute success to internal causes:

.

What role does attribution play in managerial behavior? Attributions

are tighlly linked to managers' emotions and feelings about situations

and employees, and to their subsequent decisions and behavior. Attri-

butions are especially important during performance appraisals. An un-

derstanding of how these linkages operate can provide insight into

managers' appraisal and decision aclions. This insight might well be

the key to helping a manager improve interpersonal relationships, and

might facilitate his or her capability to influence an employee toward

future performance achievement.

Natural Tendencies: Self-Sen^ Bias

In an achievement-oriented situation, an employee typically -onus

causal attributions about his or her own behavior, But the employee's

attributions for success are likely to be different from attributionsin the

case of failure. The employee may attempt to take credit for achieve-

ment ("The success was due to my good work"), but to try to avoid the

blame for failure ("What happened was beyond my control"). More

specifically, under conditions of success, the employee would attri-

bute more cause to internal reasons; under conditions of failure, the

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Controllable

) 226 THE NEW LEADERSHIP PARADIGM ATTRIBUT1ON 227

a manager (otserver) is likely to make internal attributions about the

same failure. Needless to say, a difference in perception about the

causes of performance, particularly failure, is a classic situation in per-

formance appraisal, and potentially a severe source of conflict and mis-

understanding

Who's Right—Who's Wrong?

The phrase self-serving bias, in itself, has an unfortunate pejorative

connotation. In performance appraisals it implies that it is the subordi-

nate who is, at best, a hopeless misperceiver or, at worst, a liar. In ad-

dition, actor-observer differences often are viewed as being caused

mainly by subordinates' attempts to dissociate themselves from failure.

The intensive work on the underlying processes of these phenomena

shows rather convincingly that subordinates usually do not intentionally

mislead. Subordinates do engage in self-presentation, but a great part of

their perceptual differences with managers probably is unintended.

Furthermore, some research suggests that managers tend to

over-attribute to internal causes. The message is clear that

misperceptions require resolution on the part of both parties, although

the manager, who is in the more responsible position (in the eyes of the

organization), perhaps bears the greater responsibility for

understanding and resolving the differences.

.:

Attribution sand Affect

Attributions have also been linked to affect. That is, given a failure, a

certain pattern of attributions is likely to evoke a parallel pattern of affect

and emotion. For example, consider the differences in emotional

responses thatresult from a manager's attribution of lack of ability versus

an attribution to insufficient effort. Consider that an employee has failed

at an achievement-oriented assignment. One possible conclusion is that

the failure was caused by a lack of ability on the part of the employee.

This situation is likely to generate a relatively "cool" emo-

tional response, perhaps one of sympathy from the manager toward the

employee. However, an attribution lo insufficient effort would probably

generate a very different emotional response. In this case, the manager is

more likely to be angry and/or disappointed.

The main point is that an emotional response is a natural result of the

way a manager thinks about the failure of an employee. One attribution

is likely to evoke one type of emotion; a different kind of attribution is

likely to evoke a different emotion.

The general findings of the research about linkages between attribu-

tions and emotional responses are as follows:

(1) Attribution of success to internal causes such as ability or effort leads to

pride, satisfaction, or feelings of competence, while attributions of suc

cess to an external cause, .such as task or luck, leads to gratitude, thanks,

or surprise.

(2) Attribution of failure to an internal cause (e.g., lack of ability or l*ck of

effort) leads to guilt, fear, or unhappiness, and a feeling of incompetence,

while attribution of failure to external causes {e.g., bad luck or difficult

task) leads to anger, surprise, or sadness.

Attributions and Verbal Behavior

Attributions are also connected with verbal behavior. Certain types

of attributions are likely to generate certain types of managerial verbal

behavior.8 One finding is that managers seldom directly disclose their

own preliminary attributions. That is, even though a manager may have

an attribution in mind, she does not typically reveal it to the subordinate

employee. Instead, she prefers to make an attribution request. That is,

she may ask attribution-eliciting or "why" questions, and seek to have

the employee make verbal assertions about performance on the task.

This attribution request strategy is especially likely when the manager's

preliminary attribution is to "lack of effort" on the part of the

employee. That is, if a manager suspects that a subordinate failure

,

230 THE NEW LEADERSHIP PARADIGM ATTRIBUTION 231

MliX'V-lA T \.' *»»*>* *^»-llM T 1X^1 1*1 1 v*I LSl'll>JV"7j U1IV1

ment motivatioi can be quite different.

of Ability

At one level of analysis, this situation might be seen to be quite

straightforward and relatively easy to manage. From a managerial per-

spective, the obvious solution to lack of ability would seem to be train-

ing. And, indeed, in many cases the solution might be precisely that

simple. But a danger of dysfunctional psychological response is a dis-

tinct possibility. Ascribing failure to lack of ability might lead to feel-

ings of incompetence on the part of the subordinate employee. That

employee mighi then anticipate failure again in the future. Further-

more, if the manager truly believes and accepts the lack of ability attri-

bution, the situation might be exacerbated. The manager might

inadvertently reinforce the subordinate's feelings of incompetence by

abandoning challenging achievement expectations, no longer expecting

high performance, taking responsibility away from the employee, and

fostering excessive dependence. The net result might be loss of

confidence by tie manager as well as loss of self-efficacy by the em-

ployee, because of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

An effective manager will guard against this undesirable outcome. If

training is truly required, it should be arranged in such a way that the

employee avoids loss of self-efficacy and feelings of incompetence.

Most of ail, it is important for the manager to convey a sense of chal-

lenge and confidence in the future achievements of the employee.

Lack of Effort

The immediats result of attribution of failure to lack of effort might

be anger (on the part of the manager). Interestingly, however, the pros-

pect of improved long-term results might be better than it is for attribu-

tion to lack of ability. When failure is ascribed to a stable cause, such

as lack of ability, it can again be anticipated. Conversely, lack of effort

might be temporary or variable, so effort can be augmented from one

achievement episode to the next. Thus if lack of effort is the problem,

it does not necessarily imply that future failures will follow.

One of the short-term outcomes of a lack of effort attribution by a

subordinate is likely to be guilt and shame. Guilt, in fact, is likely to

generate renewed motivation. But the behavior of the manager is im-

portant here too, if future achievement motivation of the employee is

to be improved. First, the manager should recognize that anger is natural

and to be expected, but that the best way to proceed is to move beyond

the anger stage. At this point, it is important to convej to the employee

positive expectations about her success in the future. This positive

expectation by the manager, combined with the guilt of the employee, is

likely to lead to a firm resolve on the employee's part to achieve future

goals,

Furthermore, this firm expectation by the manager forces self-re-

sponsibility on ihe part of the employee—certainly a positivelj' moti-

vating situation. It might be controversial to suggest that guilt tin be a

positive factor to enhance achievement-oriented situations, but

guilt is a reality all of us recognize. Contained within a general

climate of positive expectations, this emotion can be turned to the

advantage of both the manager and the employee.

(1) Recognize and expect self-serving bias.

(2) Verbally reinforvt owning up; verbally reprimand covering up.

(3) Probe for true causes; use active listening.

(4) Distinguish between circumstances and effort as possible causes.

(5) Train people to define effective performance, for subordinates.

(6) Set specific goals for/with employees.

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Summary: Managerial Responses to Self-Serving Bias

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Here are some practical tips as to how a manager might be more ef-

fective in dealing with self-serving bias:

reason for failure to internal reasons, but the basic assumptions, the

affective and behavioral responses, and the ultimate employee achieve- ifivntmn r'an tv» finite different