Mark Murphy

Where does entitlement in our organizations come from? Are employees just naturally entitled, or is there something about our leadership that’s contributing to the problem?

In the late 1950s, there was a school of psychological thought called Transactional Analysis that identified three states (or "voices") within which we interact with other people. And it provides a particularly good model for addressing entitlement in organizations.

Here are the three unique voices (or "ego states" as psychologists sometimes call them) that drive entitlement in the workplace:

Parent Voice

The "Parent" voice is a giver. (Which, as you'll see in a moment, is often not a good thing in the workplace.) It could be giving criticism. It could be giving permission. It could be giving security. The giver says, "I’m going to tell you how things are, give you permission, give you criticism, give you security, and you will thus be dependent on me to give you all these things."

Child Voice

The flip side of the giver is the taker or “Child” voice. This is the role where we take. We are dependent on the giver for our emotions, our reactions and for how we think. We’re in a reactive, taking role.

Adult Voice

Finally, the third voice is the “Adult” voice. The adult voice is our logical, independent, self-sufficient, rational (calm, cool, collected) voice. This is the person who says, “I will solicit my own feedback. I will go out into the world and figure out things for myself, and I’ll do it calmly, coolly, collectively, rationally and self-sufficiently.”

Now, the Parent-Child dynamic – and thus entitlement itself – has nothing to do with our chronology. In other words, it has nothing to do with our age or whether or not we are parents or children. Someone in their 80s can act in Child mode, and someone in their 20s can act in Parent mode. Instead, it's all about how we interact with each other.

Learn how to change an entitlement culture from the inside out. In our new webinar, "Overcoming a Culture of Entitlement," you'll discover how taking the Adult (or coach) role as a leader (rather than the typical Parent role) will make employees more self-sufficient, more accountable and more productive. Learn more now.

So to answer the question from above, "Where does entitlement come from?", entitlement in an organization comes from the people in your organization inhabiting Parent and Child voices. It’s not just employees in the taking role, and it's not just managers in the giving role – it's both of these groups playing their respective roles that perpetuate a culture of entitlement.

In many organizations, managers, executives and human capital systems assume the Parent role — giving performance reviews, giving raises, giving information, and giving permission. Meanwhile, in those same organizations, the employees are squarely in the Child role — taking the reviews, raises, information and permission.

For example, it's pretty typical for a manager conducting a performance appraisal to give praise or criticism while the employee takes feedback and reacts accordingly. But we don’t want managers conducting performance reviews by just giving praise or criticism while employees just passively take it; we want them to have an Adult conversation where they can share their various perspectives, take ownership, and become more self-sufficient. Wouldn’t you rather have your employees coming into these conversations armed with great self-awareness, understanding and owning their personal opportunities for improvement, and taking full control of their lives and careers?

To fix entitlement, the goal is to get everyone in the Adult voice. Managers have to leave the Parent role and move into the Adult role, and employees have to leave the Child role and move into the Adult role – and it’s a challenge for both.

For managers, it can be scary to leave the Parent role. After all, it means giving up control. The more employees become self-sufficient, the more they realize we don’t have all the answers; the more they realize we're not always correct; the more they challenge our management decisions. By the same token, it can be scary for employees to leave the Child role. After all, it means they will have to exert more effort; they will have to go out into the world and procure information for themselves rather than having it handed to them; they will have to start making some of their own decisions and learning from their mistakes. No doubt these are challenges, but accepting a culture of entitlement is a much more dangerous alternative.

Even though giving up control is scary for leaders, and giving up passivity is scary for employees, ultimately, the only way to overcome entitlement is to get both groups into Adult roles. It is a delicate balance, but as you'll learn in our upcoming webinar, transforming a culture of entitlement into a culture of accountability and proactivity pays off in profit, productivity, growth and more.

Learn how to change an entitlement culture from the inside out. In our new webinar, "Overcoming a Culture of Entitlement," you'll discover how taking the Adult (or coach) role as a leader (rather than the typical Parent role) will make employees more self-sufficient, more accountable and more productive. Learn more now.