Why Managers need to study Psychology ?

 When I studied graduation, we had a mandatory course on Psychology, which happens to be one of my favorite subjects. Little did I realize that the concepts come handy at a future date in personal life and more importantly at work place.

There is an application of psychology at every level in organization, but more importantly for people in managerial position need it in managing people working for them. Not many managers are fortunate to have a course in psychology in college. Also I feel organizations are doing little to train their aspiring and performing managers on psychology. This in turn leads to mistakes in understanding people in the roles assigned.

1)      Stick model of motivation is the only model:

Psychology text books contain this metaphor of a donkey that is carrying load. In order to make it move, there are two methods to motivate it to move. One is feeding it with a carrot as a reward. Other method is to hit it with a stick as a punishment for not moving. This is popularly known as Carrot and Stick model. Unfortunately, lot of managers think staff perform only when they are subject to fear and in face of punishment. Little do they understand that there are situations and individuals who get demotivated by overdose of punishment.

2)      Senior members do not need be motivated:

Managers expect the senior members or middle level managers to be self-motivated. Self-motivated individuals usually draw motivation from the work, the challenge, the task and various other things. But the managers fail to understand that in absence of motivating factors around and at lean patches in careers, even the self-motivated seniors need to be motivated.

3)      How we make a person feel:

Managers at times underestimate and at worst fully ignore how they make the person feel. Making remarks in front of a broader group belittling a certain person, does not help anyone. It not only demotivates person, but also make him feel ignored, undervalued. So managers have to be very careful about the impact their negligent remarks have on their staff.

4)      Pat on the back:

When a staff performs some good work, manager thinks he just did his job. This can put-off the staff who is expecting some nice words about the good work done by him.

5)      Assuming everyone has same priorities in life:

This is the common mistake made. There will be staff who can afford to devote lot of their time to work either due to their ambitions, life stage or priorities. Assuming and expecting everyone to have same set of priorities will only be detrimental.

6)      Gender Sensitivity:

Common mistake made by some managers is to deliver unisex response to both gender staff in all situation. Unfortunately they think that they are being fair by being gender neutral. Study of psychology can help understand how each gender takes things,

These are just a subset of many other places where study of Psychology can help managers perform their job better.