Books in management, psychology, education, and related topics, including textbooks, often discuss Maslow’s hierarchy of relative prepotency, the hierarchy of needs. It is usually depicted as a pyramid with physiological needs as the lowest level and self-actualization at the highest level. “Maslow’s pyramid” is ubiquitous. On the Internet. In classrooms. In business. Our daughter learned about the pyramid in the 4th grade. But there is a problem. Abraham Maslow never created a pyramid (or triangle) to depict graphically his hierarchy of needs. So who did and why should we care?
 
In 2016 Todd Bridgman and Steve Cummings, both professors at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, invited me to join them in trying to answer those questions. Our search was exhaustive, including research in the Maslow archive at the Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron in Ohio. We found no reference to a pyramid in Maslow’s publications, letters, notes, or unpublished manuscripts. 
 
The earliest graphic we found for the need hierarchy was in a 1957 textbook by Keith Davis, Human Relations in Business. It was a right-sided triangle, a series of steps for each need level. The earliest pyramid that is similar to those we see everywhere today was in an article by C. D. McDermid in 1960. The article was “How Money Motivates Men” in the then popular management publication Business Horizons.  
 
In our paper, "Who Built Maslow’s Pyramid? A History of the Creation of Management Studies’ Most Famous Symbol and Its Implications for Management Education,” (published in the March 2019 issue of the Academy of Management Learning & Education), we discussed three problems with the depiction of the hierarchy of needs as a pyramid. 
 
1. The pyramid is simply a poor and misleading representation of Maslow’s theory. Until the 1980s a ladder more often and more accurately represented the hierarchy. For example:

• You can go up and down a ladder. Just because your physiological needs are satisfied does not mean your hunger, for example, does not affect your behavior. It just does not dominate or organize your psyche – but if conditions changed, Maslow is clear: physiological needs “may emerge again to dominate the organism if they are thwarted” (1943, p. 375). 
• A pyramid has a pinnacle. Nothing beyond. A ladder may be extended or more steps added. In his latter years Maslow’s thinking turned increasing toward states beyond self-actualization, such as self-transcendence.

2. The application of Maslow’s theory in the workplace, training, and education is overly simplistic and without historical context. 

• Maslow’s theory is full of nuance, has preconditions, was a general theory of human motivation. It was not conceived as a theory of workplace motivation per se.
• Furthermore Maslow spoke to criticisms some would later make of his theory and “explicitly cautioned against his ideas being interpreted in these ways.”

3.  Focusing singularly on the five needs detracts from other contributions Maslow can make to contemporary management thought. 

• Consider the workplace implications of the preconditions (Maslow, 1943, p. 383):

            “freedom to speak,
             freedom to do what one wishes so long as no harm is done to others, 
             freedom to express one’s self,
             freedom to investigate and seek for information,
             freedom to defend one’s self,
             justice,
             fairness,
             honesty,
             orderliness in the group”

• Maslow championed self-expression and development of creativity in its different forms. 

 
Some of our conclusions:
 
1. It is important to use primary sources where possible. Over time ideas and theories can mutate, change meaning, be presented differently than originally conceived. Our story about Maslow’s pyramid is probably representative. 
 
2. There are insights to be learned, studied, from scholars before empiricism became the benchmark. 
 
3. To understand Maslow, start with his 1943 paper, “A Theory of Human Motivation.”
 
And my take-aways:
 
1. Maslow spoke to knowing yourself and realizing your potential, and that was not necessarily striving for money and power. It was allowing yourself to be, to grow, to express yourself in the world, in relationships, in community, and yes in the workplace.
 
2. Maslow was not a perfect individual. He was to some degree the product of his times when many attitudes were very different from today. But he wrote about, talked about ideas that speak to the very best of what it means to be a human being. 
 
3. On a personal note: Recently our Maslow paper was selected for the 2019 Best Paper Award in the Academy of Management Learning & Education journal. I thank Todd and Steve for inviting me along on this part of their journey.  

Bridgman, T., Cummings, S., & Ballard, J. (2019). Who built Maslow’s pyramid? A history of the creation of management studies’ most famous symbol and its implications for management education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18, 81-98. 

Davis, K. (1957). Human relations in business. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Maslow, A. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4): 370-396.

McDermid, C. D. (1960). How money motivates men. Business Horizons, 3(4): 93-100.
​
Image, "Maslow's journals", © John Ballard, 2019
 
© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. ​
 

Several years ago I was gifted a three-handled loving cup, a tyg. The Arctic Club (now the Explorers Club) presented the tyg to Amos Bonsall in 1907. He was the last surviving member of the second Grinnell expedition of 1853-1855 led by Dr. E. K. Kane in search of Sir John Franklin. In the mid-nineteenth century Arctic explorers were like space explorers 100 years later. Daring, adventurous, and willing to endure hardships, understanding the adventures before them were dangerous.

The gift of the tyg started a quest for knowledge that I have not finished. I've researched Amos Bonsall at the Chester County Historical Society (PA) and found his grave at Fernwood Cemetery near Philadelphia (surprisingly the grave site was in disrepair). 

My research took me to the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. In 1915 Bonsall’s daughters donated relics from his Arctic expedition to the U. S. National Museum. Today the National Museum preserves some of these relics. It was my good fortune to examine several of these artifacts. 

My take-away for today: Perseverance. How hard it is to continue toward an objective when it seems the environment is against you? At the National Museum I held objects from an Arctic adventure over 160 years ago, an adventure from which not all crew members returned. Disease, numbing cold, hunger. A ship trapped in ice. I held a rifle and a knife, tools for food and protection. I held medals awarded to Americans by a British queen who honored the exploration. Amos Bonsall persevered. He pushed through. Against great odds, he survived and helped others.

When the challenge before us seems insurmountable, perhaps it is time to dig deeper, to try to beat the odds, to be sustained by reflecting on those who have persevered. I was standing in a grocery line with just a few items. No lane was open for 12 items or less. I spoke to a cashier and a lane was opened. A young woman and I moved to the new lane. “Actually I don’t mind standing, “ she said. “Three years ago I was in an accident. I was told I would never walk again. Here I am.” She paid for her items and walked out the door. 

Persevering is an attitude, a mindset, doing all that you can to overcome obstacles to achieve a goal. If you have it, great. If not, you can put it there.

Image, © John Ballard, 2012

Modified from my blog of May 30, 2013.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. ​

What have you learned from the pandemic? The Wall Street Journal asked 10 business leaders that question. Their replies were in a recent issue (June 27-28, 2020). Here are the comments from those leaders which I have sorted into four categories:
 
On community

• I wish we had done a better job of sticking with community building with weekly all-hands or town halls. I worry culture will start to fray.
• It’s important for me to see you, for you to see me and that you’re ok and I’m ok and we’re getting business done. 
• What struck me is that all of us are really looking for anchors and safe harbors during this time.... Until this time, though, I didn’t really see the company—or a company, an employer—as necessarily filling that role for people. But people are looking for us to fill that role. Every day, I try to call three to six people, just to check in, just to say hi, see how they’re doing. I wouldn’t necessarily have done that before.
• Acknowledgments have to be much louder. Giving someone credit at an-all hands in person is much different than on Zoom. Leaders have a responsibility to ensure that success and achievements are especially acknowledged in a time like this.
• How to maintain culture and connectivity on Zoom is something you have to learn. . . Managers have to be inclusive and take extra care to make sure all voices are heard.

On working from home:

• The notion of putting 7,000 people in a building may be a thing of the past…It is absolutely remarkable that we have over 70,000 people working remotely and keeping a very complicated $1.7 trillion balance sheet bank functioning...people are doing it from their kitchens.
• It’s definitely overrated...The temptations of staying home and listening to music and going in the garden and going shopping, and cooking or reading an interesting book suddenly—they eat into the working time.
• Wondered what they were doing when they weren’t at the office, but the productivity has been off the roof, so I need to just trust them. If they say they’re working at home, they’re working at home.
• One thing we talk about is mental fatigue. I talk about the brain as a muscle. I’m pushing my people to say: Take a break. Put in a lunch hour. Cut yourself off at five o’clock.
• There’s no such thing as too much communication... 

On adapting

• In any business you get used to operating at a certain cadence, and then all of the sudden when the world around you is changing as fast as it was, you have to kind of pick up your feet way faster and make changes much, much more quickly.
• In this time of ambiguity, you have to be open to learning. Because if you don’t learn, you don’t know how to adapt.... Being transparent, being inquisitive are good ingredients.

On introspection

• I’ve always thought leadership meant I was right there and frankly, I think I get on my staff’s nerves sometimes. I probably had some control issues myself . . . 

 
My take-aways
 
1. The Wall Street Journal provided short sound bites. Longer interviews with each business leader would have probably been more informative and more representative of each leader's thinking about lessons learned.
 
2. The main themes were about remote work:  maintaining culture and maintaining productivity. Sustaining culture in the absence of in-person interactions is tougher. Working remotely is different from being in the workplace. While communication is important, there could be too much communication. Some supervisors have difficulty finding the balance. 
 
3.  The comments about productivity are not surprising but for me they were somewhat disappointing. In companies that value people, the employees will get the job done. There is nothing sacred about the 8-hour day or the hours in which work gets accomplished (unless there are structural issues, e.g., customers and such during certain hours). Research supports that for many jobs there is no differences in productivity between the 6-hour day and the 8-hour day. The attitude that people working at home would be less productive reminds me of McGregor’s Theory X way of thinking about people. 
 
4.  Introspection, reflecting about oneself, should be a characteristic of leaders. For most of us, the pandemic has brought moments in which we ponder issues that we are usually too busy to think about. Now is a good time to pull back, create a space in our days to reflect on where we are, where we are going, what our priorities are, what our priorities should be. 
 
“What I Learned from the Pandemic” (June 27-28, 2020). The Wall Street Journal. 
 
Image, "Growth" by Gerald. Retrieved from: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/growth-suit-work-bank-economy-453485/   Free to use.
 
© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

This is an unusually stressful time. Health, finances, income, relationships to name just a few possible sources of stress. Exercise is one key to managing stress. For me I swam most days at a local fitness club until the pandemic. It may be months until I can return to my normal exercise routine. 
 
Roles are major sources of stress in our lives in the best of time. During this pandemic role conflicts may come into sharper focus. Over 50 years ago Kahn and colleagues described six types of role conflict:

• interrole – conflicts among several of your roles. For example, conflict between role as a parent and role as an employee
• intersender – different expectations from different people
• intrasender – different expectations from the same person, such as at different times
• person-role – conflict between demands of role and your values, personal standards
• role ambiguity – not knowing what is expected of you
• role overload – just can’t do everything on your plate

If you work remotely, how has the pandemic affected role-related conflict? Some hypotheses:

• Interrole conflict may be greater. For employees working from home with children, roles as parent and roles as employees are more likely to clash. Children may be in same room or nearby. Roles as parent are more salient. The child needs you and you are right there, unlike going to a workplace miles away. 
• Intersender role conflict will vary with the chain of command but should be less. It is easier to talk with someone in the workplace than it is virtually. In other words, it is less likely someone other than your boss will drop in with different guidance or contradictory requests. 
• Intrasender role conflict depends on the person so there should be no change. A boss that says one thing on Monday and another on Wednesday most likely will do the same virtually.
• Person-role conflict may grow. Working at home there may be more moments to reflect on how you’re living your life now versus months ago. Priorities, perhaps even values, may change. 
• Role ambiguity will probably increase initially if remote working is new. In the workplace we have access to information from others, we can ask questions, we can have processes clarified. These can still be done remotely but involve more effort, more energy. For some, how to do the job remotely may be a challenge, a challenge with no clear guidance.
• Role overload will most likely increase. Working remotely may require learning new skills. It may be harder for supervisors to understand workload levels. Additionally there are the other responsibilities from other roles that are more visible because you are working at home. 

 
My guess is there are large individual differences here. Some will adjust to remote work fine. Others will find it more stressful. Regardless the experience of working at home will become more common in the months and years ahead. Recognizing your sources of role-related stress may help manage these conflicts.
 
Kahn, R. L., Wolfe, D. M., Quinn, R. P., Snoek, J. D., & Rosenthal, R. A. (1964). Role stress: Studies in role conflict and ambiguity. New York, NY: John Wiley.
 
Image, "Woman Typing" by Taryn Elliott. Retrieved from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-woman-typing-on-laptop-4112289/    Free to use.
 
© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

Usually when I write this blog, I share research studies relevant to leadership, management, and life in the workplace. Mostly I am evidence-based, trying in my small way to help bridge the management/organizational scholar–practitioner gap. There is good research with applicable findings that fail to find their way into management practice while unsupported fads spread like the coronavirus.
 
Which brings me to this point: We have a New Normal. Massive unemployment as people lose their jobs. People with jobs working at home for the first time. Managers managing from home for the first time. Fear, worry, and concern are part of our daily lives. There are some areas where research literature can inform, but most of the literature does not exactly, or directly, generalize to work in this time of crisis. We have a new environment.
 
In 1936 Kurt Lewin, the father of social psychology, described human behavior as B = f (L) where L is Lifespace. He elaborated this to B = f (P, E) where P is person and E is environment. P includes all that makes us different (e.g., attitudes, personality, motivations, capabilities, and so forth). E includes both the physical and social environment. Behavior is a function of the many aspects of the person, the environment, and their interaction. In this pandemic the environment has greatly changed and we are trying to adjust. Just think about the ways your life, your thoughts, your behaviors are now different from just last year.
 
In an interview conducted by Ayleen Barbel Fattal, Nathan Hiller (Florida International University) stated:
We can’t expect people to be able to think well and execute complex work tasks if they’re in a heightened state of anxiety about their family’s safety and if they are worried about their company going bankrupt or have watched their family-members lose their jobs. . . You can’t concentrate. You aren’t very productive. . . none of us will be at the top of our game when it comes to work.
 
The environment and its impact on us are inescapable. As I write this, there are many people awaiting the coronavirus test, people lying in hospital beds in tents, people suffering, people dying. Working in trying, dangerous conditions they never foresaw are our frontline nurses, physicians, and other health care providers. Research during other outbreaks has shown the devastating impact of stress (i.e., PTSD) on crisis health care professionals and their heightened need for support.
 
In a recent New York Times, David Gelles talked with eight CEOs about working from home during this pandemic. “Nobody prepares for this,” said Chuck Robbins (Cisco), “None of this technology was designed to support the entire world working from home” (Business section, p. 4). Other CEOs talked about the mental health challenges, the fatigue, even burnout. Giovanni Caforio (Bristol Myers Squibb): “Right now we all have to make trade-offs.”
 
There is much research on working remotely, working in virtual teams, but not research on suddenly having to work at home with no training during a pandemic. Here are three keys for managers from Nathan Hiller and Valentina Bruk-Lee:

• Be empathetic. Ask, listen, try to understand, acknowledge [feelings].
• Communicate clearly, truthfully, and frequently.
• Use video technology. Better to hear and see.

 
To these I would add, “don’t micromanage.”  Be very flexible with work hours, that is, focus on work being done, not when it is done to the extent possible. 
 
Most of the environmental factors weighing on employees weigh also on managers. Parents, grandparents, children at risk. Loneliness. Lack of non-digital social interaction. If you lead managers, do not expect them to be at their best. Work with them just as they need to work with their direct reports.
 
Be strong. Stay safe. 
 
Fattal, A. B. (2020, March 23). How to effectively manage a team during a pandemic while everyone works from home. FIU News. https://news.fiu.edu/2020/how-to-effectively-manage-a-team-during-a-pandemic-while-everyone-works-from-home
 
Gelles, D. (2020, March 29). When a home becomes headquarters. New York Times, Business Section, 4.

Image, "Lurking Virus" by Syaibatul Hamdi. Obtained from https://pixabay.com/photos/epidemic-coronavirus-lurking-virus-4952933/  Free to use. 

​© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

Only 1% of leadership research has focused on servant leadership. However, servant leadership was the second most googled leadership theory or approach during the past decade. There are many questions about servant leadership that need to be researched.  How do servant leaders affect the culture of their organizations? How do they affect the bottom-line?

Three researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago and another from Michigan State reported a large-scale study of servant leadership in the Academy of Management Journal in 2014. Liden, Wayne, Liao, and Meuser studied nearly 1000 employees in 71 restaurants in 6 states using survey methods and corporate data. They suggested the concept of the leader focusing on serving followers differentiates servant leadership from other leadership theories. Here are some insights from their review of servant leadership studies and Robert Greenleaf’s writings:

• Employees see servant leaders as humble, more concerned with others than themselves.
• Employees see servant leaders as role models, whose behaviors they choose to emulate.
• Because employees emulate the servant leader’s behaviors, the servant leader creates a  “serving culture.”
• “Cultivation of servant leadership among followers is central to servant leadership” (p. 1436)
• Demonstrating empathy and ethical behavior elevates the perception of the servant leader. 
• A serving culture positively affects an organization’s bottom-line.

Here are findings from their study:

• “Store manager servant leadership was positively related to serving culture” (p. 1444).
• “Serving culture related positively with store performance” (p. 1444).
• Employees in “serving cultures” identified more strongly with their stores. 
• Identification with stores was positively correlated with creativity and willingness to find “divergent ways of accomplishing tasks” (p. 1446). 

My take-aways:

1.  I concur with the authors that “servant leadership is at an early stage of theoretical development.” The authors suggested social learning theory and modeling of the leader’s behaviors as an underlying mechanism. I would lean toward a Rychlakean perspective. Those followers so inclined adjust their premises to fit in and perhaps find more meaning in their work experiences.

2.  Overall, while I see the benefits of servant leadership, I suggest there are large individual differences among leaders here. Some leaders simply have a low probability of being able to put others first consistently or genuinely. My guess is this becomes more difficult as one climbs the corporate ladder. On the other hand, servant leadership may be a great fit for small business owners.

3.  There are also individual differences among followers. People work for many reasons beyond the economic (see Decoding the Workplace, Chapter 4). For some people a serving culture may be inconsistent with how they view the workplace. They may not fit in.

4.  The effectiveness of servant leadership on the bottom-line is an important finding in this study. This needs replication. My hypothesis would be that the effectiveness of servant leadership is situational.

5.  You probably know whether you are a servant leader or can grow as one. You probably also know those around you who are servant leaders and those who are not. Regardless knowing yourself and understanding those around you are major factors in determining your success as a leader.

Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Liao, C., & Meuser, J. D. (2014).  Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance. Academy of Management Journal, 37 (5), 1434-1452.

Image of trends for these leadership approaches made using Google Trends™ tool. ©2020 Google LLC, used with permission. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google LLC.
https://trends.google.com/trends/exploredate=all&q=servant%20leadership,authentic%20leadership,transformational%20leadership,leader-member%20exchange
​
Modified and updated from my blog of June 20, 2015.

​© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

Many equate leadership with a leader. As I stated in an earlier blog: "Organizations can easily confuse leader development with leadership development (see Day, 2000). Leader development focuses more on the individual, trying to develop skills and competencies to lead. On the other hand, leadership development seeks to grow leadership throughout an organization developing relationships among leaders, understanding followership, to insure leaders are on the same page, not at cross-purposes. And when this happens, magic happens." Leadership can be a property of a group of people or organization. 

In an excellent review in The Academy of Management Annals 2012, Jean-Louis Denis, Ann Langley, and Vivianne Sergi  discussed patterns of plural leadership. Plural leadership Is a “collective phenomenon that is distributed or shared among different people, potentially fluid, and constructed in interaction” (p. 212). Denis and his colleagues describe four types of plural leadership. My guess is you may have seen these in your organizations.

Sharing Leadership. Form of leadership often used by teams. Anyone can perform leadership functions. Everyone is a follower.
Producing Leadership. In knowledge-based organizations we sometimes see leadership just emerge out of interactions. In a meeting of equals, ideas flow, a path is developed, a plan started, an agreement reached. In this “producing leadership” style, individuals lead each other. Leadership emerges as a property of group interaction.

In both “sharing leadership” and “producing leadership”, followers are leaders and leaders are followers. Denis and his co-authors call this mutuality. In essence these involve reciprocal interactions that move things along where there is no clear “leader” identified.

Other forms of plural leadership still have identifiable leaders.
Pooling Leadership. In “pooling leadership”, there may be a group of people who lead together, a dyad, or triad. The leadership group leads the followers. There is still an “elite group”.
Spreading Leadership. In “spreading leadership”, leadership is passed from person to person, much like a relay team, as parts of a project or undertaking are completed. Leadership is periodically shifted. Not all followers lead nor are expected to lead.

My take-aways:

1. Sharing, producing, pooling, spreading: four approaches to plural leadership. We have identified these styles. Now we need research to help us find the best approach for different situations. In the meantime we can use our understanding of these different forms of plural leadership to expand our own leader skill set --- and to build human capital in our organizations.

2. I have enjoyed following the University of Dayton men's basketball team this season. As of this date, their record is 20-2 and they are ranked 6th nationally. They have only lost two games, both in overtime. Why mention the Dayton Flyers? The team has no official team captains. As stated by potential national player of the year and probable first round NBA draft pick Obi Toppin, "Everybody's a captain on our team." Perhaps plural leadership at its best. 

Day, D.V. (2000). Leadership development: A review in context. Leadership Quarterly, 11, 581-613.

Denis, J., Langley, A.,& Sergi, V.  (2012). Leadership in the plural. The Academy of Management Annals, 6:1, 211-283.

Image, "Dayton Flyers", by David Jablonski. Used with permission. 

Modified from my blog of December 19, 2012.

​© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Ron Riggio, Book Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

Definitions matter. The term “emotional labor” has morphed from an important concept relevant to employees, managers, HR professionals, and organizational scholars to a far too generalized term loosely used, for example, in describing household gender issues and non-work personal interactions. Google “emotional labor” and the results will run the gamut. 
 
Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild (UC Berkeley) introduced emotional labor in her 1983 book The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling: "This labor requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others  . . . This kind of labor calls for a coordination of mind and feeling, and it sometimes draws on a source of self that we honor as deep and integral to our individuality” (1983/2012, p. 7). 
 
Physical labor, mental labor, and emotional labor are characteristics of jobs. Emotional labor is highest in service jobs. The more interactions an employee has directly with customers, the greater the emotional labor. Hochschild used an example of flight attendants being told to smile. Some attendants will fully adopt the flight attendant role, of which smiling is expected. Smiling will just be part of who they are on the job – and how they feel, an example of “deep acting.” Other attendants will fake a smile, doing so because it is a job expectation, regardless of how they feel, an example of “surface acting.” For those who tend to be happy and naturally smile a lot, it may be just a good person-job match, no need for acting. Even so there will be times that interacting with a customer will be trying even for the best of us. Managing emotions in those cases can be difficult, more so for some than others. 
 
For two decades industrial/organizational psychologist Alicia Grandey (Pennsylvania State University) has been a leader in trying to understand emotional labor and its consequences. Why care about emotional labor? Positive affective interactions with customers are associated with (1) positive perceptions of service quality, (2) positive recommendations to others, and (3) intent to return. Grandey (2003) found deep acting associated with more positive customer interactions whereas surface acting was associated with more stress and a greater likelihood of “breaking character with customers.” She provides a good introduction to emotional labor at this website. 
 
In 1999 Robin Leidner, sociologist (University of Pennsylvania), wrote about emotional labor of  “low-to-middle level frontline workers” and addressed ways employers try to manage the quality of employee-customer interactions. Among these were “efforts to regulate the feelings and actions of those who work with the public through detailed pre-specification of conduct”, standardization of speech scripts and body language, and uniforms or appearance standards. These may vary from simple to substantial. 
 
My take-aways:
 
1.  Customer service can be tough on those providing the service. The unpleasant customer, the irate customer, the customer who cannot be satisfied. For some just the volume of interacting, regardless of quality, can be draining. There are clearly large individual differences in our abilities to manage our emotions and do so in healthy ways. I reluctantly admit that although I have taught Customer Service, I was not aware of the literature on emotional labor. Using the concept as discussed here, I see much room for growth in emotional labor research that could benefit employees and employers. 
 
2. Customer service can be tough for the customer. You can fill in your own examples here. My guess is we have all had a bad experience as customers. How did you handle it? How did the front-line employee handle it? Did you provide feedback to the organization? How? Sometimes it is hard to be accepting and act graciously respecting the other person – but if we could, perhaps the emotional toll of difficult interactive experiences would be less. 
 
3. Organizations will vary in how much they care about the quality of their service. If people are going to use the service regardless, they may not care. But for most, especially small businesses, the quality of their employee interactions can be the key to success or failure.  A bad hire, a bad attitude can hurt a business. Likewise, failure to support your frontline employees, including time to decompress if needed, can affect your culture, and your success. 
 
4. Emotional labor is a complex concept affected by many factors, many of which have yet to be researched. My guess is that factors such as type of industry, type of service, and individual differences affect the degree of emotional labor and associated outcomes. This would seem to be a good area for business leaders and academic researchers to partner to advance our understanding of emotional labor.
 
Grandey, A. A. (2003). When “the show must go on”: Surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery. Academy of Management Journal, 46(1), 86-96.
 
Hochschild, A. R. (2012). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. (Originally published, 1983)
 
Leidner, R. (1999). Emotional labor in service work. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 561(1), 81-95.

Image,"Person Giving Fruit to Another", by Erik Scheel. Obtained from https://www.pexels.com/photo/apple-business-fruit-local-95425/
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© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback. 

My annual blog about the importance of reading books, modified from my previous January blogs. 

Each January I pose the question: What book are you reading now? My experience is the best leaders always have a book they are reading. Lifelong learning is essential to our growth. A habit of reading books is important for lifelong learning. 

What role do books play in your life? In your learning? Making time to read books is important. I usually have several books in my study that I am working through. On long trips I enjoy audio books. I have friends who like audio books best. 
 
The most amazing book I read in 2019 was Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth. Celestial Bodies is the first Arabic novel to win the Man Booker International Prize. The story of three daughters and their very different lives in a changing Oman, it is a very creative story with beautiful prose and poetry. It took a few chapters to get into the flow of the book but it was worth it. Intriguing and surprising, it expanded my awareness to a time and place unknown to me. Not an easy read but a rewarding read. 

I also enjoyed very much David McCullough's latest, The Pioneers, about the settling of Ohio, the land where I now live. McCullough has a tremendous talent for making history real.

As we begin 2020, here are a few of the books on my reading list:

• The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck
• The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstein
• The Vision: A Novel of Time and Consciousness by Stephan Schwartz
• A Year with Peter Drucker by Joseph Maciariello

And two books from last year's list that I did not get to:

• Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon by Jeffrey Kluger
• Henry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Walls

I am also looking forward to the April release of Scott Barry Kaufman's new book, Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization. I am sure it will add to my understanding of Abraham Maslow and his work. 

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them”, Mark Twain. 

Or as the comedian Groucho Marx said,
“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”   
 
What are you reading?
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Image, my photo. 
​
© John Ballard, PhD, 2020. All rights reserved.
 _________________________
Decoding the Workplace “deals with principles and practices that are timeless . . . Is this a must-have for managers and would-be managers? Yes.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, June, 2018. Now also available as an audiobook and paperback.