The Link between Empowerment and Emotional Dissonance

In the paradigm of management, empowerment is viewed as losing authority and control over people and resources. Generally, people resent being driven, controlled and being seen as part of company equipment. This breeds apathy in employees towards the organisation’s intents in the market place and destroys accountability.

Although originally written in 1983, The Managed Heart is still an up to date look at an interesting concept: combining emotional feelings with the work one does. At first glance, the notion that emotions may have an impact on one’s work environment seems almost a non-issue. However, Hochschild is not saying that; rather, Hochschild looks at the effect of emotions in the workplace, but also the interaction of those emotions with the work itself. The author’s interest in this topic began at an early age, 12, when she recounts an event in her life: her parents, part of the U.S. Foreign Service, entertained diplomats. Hochschild describes the question that came to her mind as she looked up into the smiling face of a

One of the catchiest phrases used is ‘service with a smile’ which is popular in the dominion of the corporate world, particularly service industry. Smile commonly entails the genuine feeling of happiness, joy and delight in an individual. Nevertheless, employers have now sunk its teeth into using emotions as a means to manipulate employees for personal gains such as profit maximization and increase of productivity. Emotions however has a deeper meaning to it, reflecting in the individual’s expression as quoted by John Lennon “One thing you can’t hide is when you’re crippled inside” in his song Crippled. Employers have manipulated its way through by laying down a story line for employees, perfecting their performance on stage for their “audience”

Interaction is an important concept in sociology, and it has been studied from multiple different perspectives. Both Erving Goffman and Arlie Hochschild have made notable contributions to the sociological study of interaction. According to Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, interaction can be explained through a dramaturgical model. Within the dramaturgical model, interactions are portrayed as performances, as if a particular social environment is a stage, and the people in that social environment are actors (Goffman). Erving Goffman’s sociological interpretation of interaction is extended by Arlie Hochschild in her piece Feelings Management. Hochschild focuses specifically on performances that are put on in the workplace. Acting in the workplace has become a necessity in the service industry because in many cases, people must act warm and welcoming in order to keep their jobs. This method of acting happy and upbeat in the service industry is called emotional labor. However, as Hochschild explains, emotional labor can cause a strain on service workers, especially when they must act cheerful, even when they feel upset and distressed. The discrepancy between a person’s true emotions and their feigned emotional state is known as emotive dissonance. Continued emotive dissonance can lead to spillover, in which a person’s true emotions come out because they can no longer hold back these emotions. Though emotional labor began in the workplace, Hochschild

When it comes to worker empowerment, Chad believes that “all managers should realize no matter what industry, that when you empower your employees and give them greater responsibility you create an environment that gives employees greater job satisfaction. It has been my experience that greater job satisfaction for employees often translates into better production from the employee which is good for the company” (C. D. Cerkoney, Personal Communication, February

In many companies, operational employees also need information to handle tasks and make decisions that were assigned to supervisors. This trend, called empowerment, gives employees more

The potential barriers to empowerment that may come up in partnerships are, someone hostility to the partnership or the power they feel the other person has compared to them, for example parents that have children that are in care can be very angry and hostile to the social worker who is working on their case , they may feel they are being judged and not have a positive view of the social worker and refuse to work with them , this could be because they feel power has been taken away from them and the social worker has more power in the situation causing a divide in partnership. Likewise the social worker may not feel empowered in their role if the parents they are working with are not cooperative with them and the support they are trying to

284). Before an employee can begin to feel empowered, an open and safe environment must already be established. Employees must be given the freedom to make accountable decisions and encouragement to make these decisions. Some types of encouragement that can be provided to the employees are recognition, assured feedback, and guidance/support (Yoder-Wise, 2015). Empowered staff strive to obtain goals and provide quality service.

Empowerment is the best way to promote a good long-lasting employee-customer relationship (Fragoso, 1999). Empowerment can also bring certain benefits to employees of an organization. It makes the employees give more input to company improvements; it promotes higher productivity, and is a good balance between their personal and professional lives. It exercises employees’ minds to find better solutions to problems on the job and increases the employees’ potential for promotions and job satisfaction. It results in personal growth, feelings of confidence and control in themselves and their companies. It makes workers utilize their potentials and it enables them to stand behind their decisions, assume risks, participate and take actions. It is a win-win-win situation: customers benefit from employees, organization benefit from the employees and the customers, and employees benefit from higher confidence and self-esteem (Fragoso, 1999).

For instance, Jason Felix, a Human Resources Technician with College of the Desert describes his thought after having dealt with a rude applicant over the phone, “while physical labor is no walk in the park, dealing with people can leave you just as drained, if not more, and it can take longer to regain your emotional stability” (J. Felix, personal communication, January 30, 2017). After having been cut off, yelled at, and harangued, Jason had to still go about his day as if nothing happened. The use of good customer service in the face of disrespect is reminiscent Karl Marx writes, “the realization of labor appears as a loss of reality for the worker”. It is not the real person who is being polite but the person created for the work environment that is required to be polite. With this in mind, having to create an atmosphere of happiness when one isn’t feeling happy could result in the depersonalization of happiness with the self (Herpertz et al, 2016). The problem then turns into the employee not knowing whether they are actually happy or is only so used to being happy. How does the employee then adjust to the “real world” outside of the workplace? In A Managed Heart by Arlie Russell Hochschild, she speaks with airline attendants who must always create a positive space for passengers, their smiles being of most value to the company. One flight attendant interviewed is quoted saying, “Sometimes I

The Psychodynamic Theory focuses on how unconscious needs and internal emotions affect emotional development and motivate or drive human behaviour (Woods & Robinson 2006). This is highly relevant to the case as Emily explained how much she really loved her job and her colleagues, and that leaving was not her choice. Through understanding the relationship between the people and their experiences, the organisation can easily recognize the defence mechanisms of Emily, which is necessary for understanding emotional self-regulation. The application of

The work, which occupies a central place in our society, seeking constantly emotions. At the heart of social relations and conflicts, it generates all at once or violence solidarity, arousing feelings of injustice, anger, envy, hatred, but also of satisfaction and pleasure. As part of their daily professional activities, work mobilizes individuals in their "whole" body and soul, prompting them to rely on technical skills but also emotional, engaging their enthusiasm as their desire to do well to mobilize empathy and trust. The work can also be the scene where unintended emotions arise. When workers face difficult situations in their activities, or where the working conditions are hard, boredom, discouragement, anger and hopelessness can invite to work. We do not always measure the effort and work on oneself a considerable employee must publicly or pretend to show some emotions and, instead, to hide her tears or her disgust. The emotions of others, avoid conflict, readjust requests, and maintain a positive relationship to oneself.

Affective Events Theory is recognising different factors that cause employees’ emotional reactions on their work and how the emotional reactions influence the employees’ job performance (Greenberg, 2011). This theory helps employers to understand employees’ moods and emotions at workplace. Affective Events Theory examines the impacts of work-related incidents on emotional reactions and the following consequences for attitudes and behaviour (Russell-Bennett, Hartel & Beatson, n.d.). Ashkanasy (2002) stated that Affective Events Theory is the collection of a sequence of positive or negative affective events that turns to positive or negative affective states. If there is a negative affective event and turn to negative affective states, it will threaten attitudinal states and behavioural reactions of employees (Ashkanasy, 2002). This theory also clarifies as an approach of counterbalancing judgment-based theories of work attitudes and behaviours (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996).

With such kind of operation the employees will go an extra mile and serve customers to their best since their motivation will be increased. This will then translate to better performance at the work place since they will be more satisfied with their job. With this in mind upon being appointed as the manager he quickly adapted the aspect of empowerment into his operations.

Attitudes and emotions in the workplace are extremely important because they dictate job performance. The emotions that people go through are something that cannot be avoided; however, they can be manipulated. Managers, leaders, CEO’S of companies learn to do this by experience and training. They manipulate employee’s emotions with the purpose of achieving better performance and satisfy an organization’s goals. Although people have always had different emotions, the notion that managers need to care for employee’s satisfaction and happiness is newly implemented in the workplace. In this paper, I will be explaining the impact of attitudes in the workplace, how mood, emotions, attitudes and behavior affect job performance and I will implement the point of view of the CEO of the Defense Commissary Agency, Mr. Joseph Jeu.