Mixed signals from the top get in the way of employees’ improvement efforts

When employees propose new ways of doing things, this inevitably challenges the status quo at work. How they think the hierarchy will welcome these initiatives influences their decision to adopt this type of improvement-oriented behaviour. Jean-Sébastien Boudrias, Vincent Rousseau, and Denis Lajoie write that conflicting messages from a supervisor and the manager above the supervisor can in some cases have highly negative effects on employee improvement initiatives.