{"id":3935,"date":"2025-04-03T19:20:16","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T19:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3935"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:17:47","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:17:47","slug":"rudeness-doesnt-motivate-workers-quite-the-opposite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/rudeness-doesnt-motivate-workers-quite-the-opposite\/","title":{"rendered":"Rudeness Doesn\u2019t Motivate Workers\u2014Quite the Opposite"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Some business leaders and managers resort to barbs or even shouting to motivate staff members, but research shows that a coercive leadership style is counterproductive. In fact, civility leads to improved team cohesion and performance, while rudeness hurts workers\u2019 performance.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Peter Bamberger<\/a> of Tel Aviv University said that several research papers on the subject explore the implications that emotion-laden events in organizations have on interpersonal relations and team dynamics. In a nutshell, rudeness creates a huge distraction that undermines productivity.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, why can\u2019t you text and drive at the same time? When you\u2019re driving, the reason you don\u2019t text is because\u2014aside from it being against the law\u2014you\u2019re distracted,\u201d Bamberger said. \u201cIt\u2019s a complex process to text\u2014it takes your attention, so you have limited cognitive resources, and driving is also complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever goes to the texting is not available for driving, and the result could be death,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the connection between texting while driving and leadership style, as well as interactions between coworkers? Rudeness and even mild incivility are actually highly emotional events that occur frequently in the workplace.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany, many employees experience rudeness at work, and it\u2019s rather ambiguous,\u201d Bamberger said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like being bullied or attacked physically, but in response to rudeness, you\u2019ve got to try to figure out what is threatening to some degree, but you don\u2019t know how threatening it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd precisely because of that, and largely unconsciously, your brain is engaging and trying to determine the degree of threat,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not a mindset that\u2019s conducive to analysis, attention to detail, or any type of thought-demanding work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Some business leaders and managers resort to barbs or even shouting to motivate staff members, but research shows that a coercive leadership style is counterproductive. In fact, civility leads to improved team cohesion and performance, while rudeness hurts workers\u2019 performance. 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Previously, he was a writer and the Finance Editor for Strategic Finance magazine and Management Accounting Quarterly, a scholarly journal, at the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). Prior to that, he worked as a writer\/editor at The Financial Times, including daily FT sister publications Ignites and FundFire, as well as Crain Communications\u2019s InvestmentNews and Crain\u2019s Wealth, eFinancialCareers, and Arizent\u2019s Financial Planning, Re:Invent|Wealth, On Wall Street, Bank Investment Consultant, and Money Management Executive. He earned his bachelor\u2019s degree, Cum Laude, from the University of Colorado Boulder and his master\u2019s degree from New York University. You can reach him at dbutcher@aom.org or via LinkedIn.","sameAs":["https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/danielbutcher\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"daniel-butcher","display_name":"Daniel Butcher","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp","url2x":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/yelling-over-office-phone.jpg",1000,667,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/yelling-over-office-phone.jpg",1000,667,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/yelling-over-office-phone.jpg",1000,667,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/yelling-over-office-phone-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/yelling-over-office-phone-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/yelling-over-office-phone.jpg",800,534,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/yelling-over-office-phone.jpg",1000,667,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/yelling-over-office-phone.jpg",1000,667,false],"owl_elementor_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/yelling-over-office-phone-600x400.jpg",600,400,true],"owl_elementor_team":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/yelling-over-office-phone-350x450.jpg",350,450,true],"owl_elementor_testimonial":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/yelling-over-office-phone-100x100.jpg",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Daniel Butcher","author_link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"},"rttpg_comment":2,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/emotions\/\" rel=\"category tag\">EMOTIONS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/leadership\/\" rel=\"category tag\">LEADERSHIP<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/motivation\/\" rel=\"category tag\">MOTIVATION<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/performance\/\" rel=\"category tag\">PERFORMANCE<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"By Daniel Butcher Some business leaders and managers resort to barbs or even shouting to motivate staff members, but research shows that a coercive leadership style is counterproductive. In fact, civility leads to improved team cohesion and performance, while rudeness hurts workers\u2019 performance. Academy of Management Scholar Peter Bamberger of Tel Aviv University said that…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3935"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=3935"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}