Intercepting managers' attributional bias through feedback‐skills training

Abstract

Abstract The nature of the judgments managers make about problem employees can greatly affect the strategies chosen to address them. An experimental treatment with sixty‐five managers in a large municipal government tested the effects of feedback‐skills training on the tendency to make causal attributions about the behavior of their poorest performers. Managers wrote critical incidents about their least effective subordinate (LES) as a pretest and a post‐test. Training included role‐playing practice in the key feedback skills of specificity, empathy, and inquiry in preparation for holding an actual feedback session in the work setting with the LES. Critical incidents were blind‐rated using scales for dispositional attribution, situational attribution, specificity, empathy, and inquiry. Analysis of covariance showed statistically significant increases among the treatment group in the use of feedback skills and a decrease in the tendency to attribute subordinates' problem behaviors to dispositional factors.

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