Supervisor's Survival Kit: Your First Step into Management, Ninth Edition

STRAITJACKETING EMPLOYEES

Call it prejudging, underestimating, downgrading, or prejudice. Whatever the name, many supervisors put their employees in a psychological straitjacket, preventing them from growing into the kind of workers they could become. This problem usually arises because supervisors are unaware of the restrictive climate or barriers they build. They may think they are communicating with the employees, but they aren't. At least three kinds of supervisors restrict their employees in this way.

The typecaster. This supervisor wants to classify and pigeonhole all employees. Rather than accepting and treating everyone as a separate, unique individual, this manager insists upon putting people into groups. For example, a male manager ...