The Power of Guilt: Understanding Employee Absenteeism

Most of us probably believe that a link exists between a person's attendance record at work and his or her job satisfaction.  The employees who show up every day must be more satisfied than those who opt to stay home a fair bit, right?  Not so fast. Interestingly, the data do not support the beliefs most of us hold about absenteeism and job satisfaction.  

An interesting new study helps us understand what's really going on in the workplace.  Rebecca Schaumberg and Francis J. Flynn examined more than 300 customer service associates at various call centers.   The scholars measured job satisfaction, and they tracked the employee's attendance at work over a four month period.   Interestingly, they also administered a survey to evaluate how "guilt prone" each individual was.  What did they discover?  If individuals were not very susceptible to feelings of guilt, then attendance and job satisfaction are positvely corelated.  In other words, the more dissatisfied people are, the more likely they are to miss work.  That's what we would expect.  However, things change when we examine people who are higly "guilt prone."  For these people, no relationship exists between attendance and job satisfaction.  These people sometimes keep right on showing up for work, even if they are very unhappy, because of their feelings of guilt.  

The lesson is clear - be careful how you interpret a strong attendance record on the part of employees.  Low absenteeism may not signal that you have created a terrific work environment where people love to come to work.  It may tell more about the personal attributes of your workers, and what motivates them to act each morning.  

Feeling Guilty About a Mistake? Is it a Sign of Leadership Potential?

Stanford Professor Francis Flynn and doctoral student Becky Schaumberg have conducted an interesting new study about leadership.    They administered a personality test to groups of 4-5 people.  The test examined guilt proneness, shame proneness, extraversion, and other traits.  They were particularly interested in the distinction between guilt and shame.   Feeling guilty means that someone "feels bad about a specific mistake and wants to make amends."  Feeling shame means that someone "feels bad about himself or herself and shrinks away from the error."

In this experiment, the groups had to perform two tasks after completing the personality inventory.   The subjects evaluated each others' leadership qualities after completing these tasks.  It turns out that the people who scored highest on the "guilt proneness" measure tended to be identified as the strongest leaders.  In fact, guilt proneness "predicted emerging leadership even more than extraversion."  According to Schaumberg, "Guilt-prone people tend to carry a strong sense of responsibility to others, and that responsibility makes other people see them as leaders."  

Well... I guess I may have some leadership potential... after all, I'm Catholic, and we are experts at feeling guilty!   Seriously, though, I think the study points to something very important.  Feeling a responsibility to others is the mark of a good leader.  Moreover, wanting to atone for your mistakes, rather than simply trying to cover them up, makes for an effective leader.   I wonder how we might look for those characteristics as we interview young people for leadership positions early in their careers.  Thoughts?