Table of Contents
According to Robins & Judge (2017), defensive behaviors are reactive and protective behaviors to avoid action, blame, or change. Thus, they are anticipated to reduce a perceived threat or avoid an unwanted demand. Behaving defensively is not ignoring totally the task; rather, it is giving some regard to the task, while exerting the biggest effort towards protecting oneself. Other than discussing the issue, the person minds how he appears to other people, how he might be seen even more positively, how he may win, overwhelm, awe or escape punishment. Behaving defensively is also about how to maintain a strategic distance from an apparent attack.
On the other hand, certain behaviors may have several triggers and it is important to determine the motives before classifying the behavior as ‘defensive.’ Benveniste (1977) records that ‘doing nothing is relatively safe because it is noncontroversial’ (p. 110). Being defensive has wrecked many careers, as it hinders one’s readiness to learn from mistakes, shape strong interpersonal relationships, approve and benefit from divergent standpoints, be accountable for poor results, or take initiatives.
Ashforth & Lee, (1990) models different sets of defensive behaviors to avoid action: over-conforming, passing the buck, playing dumb, depersonalizing, stretching and smoothing, and stalling
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Avoid Blame is to manage the impression of competency and value by avoiding blame for present or projected negative outcomes. Avoiding Blame may be reached by buffing, playing safe, and after the error is done by justifying, and scapegoating. Ashforth & Lee model considers that “misrepresenting” and “escalating commitment: are employed to forestall or counter blame.
Despite that change is becoming the catchphrase of management, given the increasing complexity and dynamism of technical, economic, political, and social environments, there are many people who try to avoid the change, simply because change disturbs stability and pattern of individual adjustments. Change may entail a company restructures or downsizing; this change could mean put their status to risk. In addition, change may be sensed as implicit disapproval of past decisions and as foreshadowing inexcusable uncertainty. Change may generate two behaviors: Resisting change, and protecting turf . These are called by Robbins & Judge (2017) as prevention and self-protection.
Over-Conforming
Conforming definition according to dictionary.com means to “act in accordance or harmony; comply (usually followed by to): to conform to rules. To act in accord with the prevailing standards, attitudes, practices, etc., of society or a group”
This definition infers why some individuals tend to resort to over-confirming a self-defense mechanism. Such behavior is adopted to avoid action; they resort to a stern interpretation of one’s responsibility (‘we have rules, according to the rules), and possibly quoting endorsing precedents (‘ This has been always the rule’). The individual strictly abides by directives, typical functional procedures, managerial requirements, and precedents , thus dodging the need to consider the nuances of matters and adaptably apply the rules (Lipsky, 1980; Morgan, 1987). Hasenfeld and Steinmetz (1981) noted that over-conformists usually try to neutralize their effect by distancing themselves from the rules (‘I am not the boss, I didn’t put the rules, it is not up to me). They go by the book so that they could avoid blame as well.
Buffing
The practice of buffing is about protecting oneself from possible criticism, legal penalties, or other consequences, usually in a work-related or bureaucratic context. Back in the seventies, Shem (1978)* established this term to describe the practice of scrupulously documenting activity or fabricating documents to project an image of competency and meticulousness. In Shem’s novel, hospital interns protected their reputations by buffing patients’ medical charts, i.e., recording test results and procedures that had not in fact been performed. An example of buffing is when a nurse wakes up a patient just to comply with the guideline that the patient must be given medication to help him sleep. This behavior can take different forms like requesting instructions and approval in writing, recording the minutes of meetings, forwarding copies of memos and minutes, performing exhaustive analyses, and documenting compliance with formal and prescriptive requirements.
Prevention/ Resisting Change
Prevention is trying to prevent a threatening change from occurring . Resistance is rejecting ideas mindlessly and disruptively, criticizing innovations, complying verbatim, over-conforming to obsolete rules and measures, and denying support of good suggestions. When people feel threatened by a change, they resist it as a self-defense mechanism. They could even put barriers that are more bureaucratic to challenge the work-restructuring programs that threatened their traditional bases of power and status.
Such behaviors stem from the organizational culture, such as standards, vision, shared values, expectations, and norms, all combined with individual characteristics will certainly increase the tendency to avoid action, blame, and change, and this may consecutively bolster the culture. (Valle & Perrewe (2000).
Why Employees Engage in the Behavior
Defensive behaviors are usually associated with the organizational antecedents of bureaucratic rationality, various stressors, and with individual differences (Robbins & Judge, 2017)
Bureaucratic
Rationality is recognized as control through knowledge or that which enables things to be known. The acts of illustrating definitional limits, rules, methods, codes, conventions, that empowers it to be known, and be followed up on. Tasks are subdivided according to specialties and assigned to employees through formalization, e.g., standard functioning systems and job descriptions, and larger layers of supervision. While the subdivision of tasks makes one all the more obvious in charge of a particular assignment, it all the while makes one less in charge of the overall task. This dissemination of duty may build the ability to keep away from the activity, particularly to pass the buck, play dumb, over-conform, and depersonalize, and task specialization here gives the Justification.
Rules and procedures are established, in part, to render behavior reliable. However, by specifying what is expected, formalization also specifies what is not, thus providing a justification for avoiding actions which do not match the rules and procedures (Morgan, 1986).
The logic of bureaucratic rationality maintains that individuals should be held responsible for their actions and those of their subordinates, and should be rewarded or punished accordingly. This predisposes individuals to choose actions that they believe will be acceptable to others.
Stressors
The stressors considered here include threat, ambiguity, overload, and powerlessness.
Threat: Most instances of defensiveness can be traced back to a perception of actual or implied threat, be it a threat to job security, resources, reputation, task requirements, the self-concept, or the like. When individuals tend to be worried about keeping their job or fending off critics, they are likely to increase their commitment to a previously chosen policy and become inflexible in their defense of such positions. (Chattopadhyay, P., Glick, W. H., & Huber, G. P., 2001. Academy of Management Journal, 44).
Ambiguity: The greater the unclearness surrounding the task environment, the greater the likelihood of defensiveness. Ambiguity regarding responsibility, the interpretation of policies, classification of clients, procedures and processes, handling of crises, and so forth drives employees to reorganize an event in a manner consistent with their own interests and thereby avoid action and blame. The role ambiguity among managers and professionals was associated with such escapist behaviors as avoidance and delegation of problematic situations. (Fugate, M., Kinicki, A. J., & Prussia, G. E. (2008). Personnel Psychology, 61(1), 1-36).
Overload: Whether quantitative or qualitative, overload burdens strains the capacity of the individual to meet task demands. Accordingly, overload may produce defenses intended for avoiding action. Karatepe, O. M. (2013)
Powerlessness is defined as a lack of participation and autonomy (G. Tummers, L., & Den Dulk, L. (2013). The more powerless the individual, the less he or she can proactively manage the work environment and forestall the need for defensiveness. In the absence of power, the more passive and covert defensive tactics are likely to emerge.
Individual
Anxiety: The clinical psychology argues that various cognitive defense mechanisms are triggered by anxiety (Diamond, M. A. (2008)). A general sense of insecurity or anxiety strongly predicts behavioral defense mechanisms (Gallie, D., Felstead, A., Green, F., & Inanc, H. (2017)
Emotional Exhaustion : It’s a depletion of emotional resources such that one feels drained and unable to give off themselves. Emotional exhaustion constitutes the core dimension of burnout (Ashforth 1989). Emotional exhaustion may prompt the avoidance of action, especially depersonalization, and change. It appears to decrease a person’s concern with the impression management implications of their behavior.
Self-Efficacy: It is the belief that one can successfully perform a given behavior or task. People tend to avoid activities for which their self-efficacy is low. (Journal of Happiness Studies, 16(3), 767-788.)
Work Alienation: This concept is defined as a cognitive sense of separation from work and the workplace, that is, a lack of job involvement and organizational identification (Ashforth, 1989).
Alienated employees view work as a means that serves a purpose, and exhibit low intrinsic motivation and passivity. Accordingly, work alienation likely predicts the avoidance of action. Further, the instrumental motivation and lack of organizational identification suggest that alienated individuals are less likely to accept blame on behalf of the organization.
Self-Monitoring: In the Journal of Organizational Behavior, 40(2), 193-208 a recent published study ( Kudret, S., Erdogan, B., & Bauer, T. N. (2019) noted that high self-monitors are concerned with the social appropriateness of their behavior This apparent concern with the social image suggests that high self-monitors will tend to avoid action, blame, and change under certain circumstances.
