Following employee feedback, leaders shouldn’t rush to change their behavior too quickly, or employees may become skeptical and see it as inauthentic, according to a study published Sept. 24 in the Academy of Management Journal.
Instead, employees want to see gradual, natural change that occurs due to their thoughts being heard and processed.
“For leaders, sometimes it’s not enough to just change. We have to consider how it might also be perceived, and people believe that true change takes time,” Danbee Chon, an assistant professor of management at the University of South Florida’s Muma College of Business, said in a news release published Oct 6 promoting the study.
Across three studies, Chon and colleagues researched how leaders respond to employee concerns, by first surveying 205 doctoral students from research universities and then sampling responses from 2,000 employees based on leadership action plans written by executives.
Overall, the researchers found that leaders who acted too quickly were seen as less authentic, even when employees asked for those changes. Employees also saw managers as less sincere when making quick changes, as compared to a slower and gradual change trajectory.
Notably, the “authenticity penalty” was particularly strong when the change being made was difficult, the report found.
Leaders shouldn’t always take a slow approach, the researchers said. Rather, they should consider the trade-offs of each approach.
“When change is easy, leaders who change rapidly may be viewed as less authentic but more responsive — enabling employees to feel seen and heard,” Chon said. “Authenticity is one — important, but nevertheless, one — facet of leader evaluations.”
In general, the researchers found, genuine change encourages employees to continue speaking up. Other studies have supported this idea and found that employers shouldn’t request feedback if they’re not prepared to take action in it, according to a report from McLean & Co. If employers ignore feedback or don’t act, employee trust and engagement may decline.
