Does Status Stand in the Way of Standing up for a Colleague?

Research from Smith Explores Why Coworkers Stay Quiet When Others Are Treated Unfairly

Being respected and revered by your coworkers might make you feel invincible. But will that social capital motivate you to help a coworker who is being mistreated by a supervisor, despite the risk that may be associated with standing up to such a supervisor? Recent research from Smith says not necessarily so.

Smith’s Rellie Derfler-Rozin, academic director, Master in Management Studies (MiM) and Online Master in Management Studies (OMiM) and co-authors Ogus Gencay of Bilkent University, and Gamze Arman of UWE Bristol, explore this phenomenon in “Should I Stand Up for My Mistreated Colleague? When and Why High-Status Team Members Stand Up for their Coworkers”.

Derfler-Rozin and her co-authors explored this topic from the perspective of how the status of the observer impacts their reaction to supervisory mistreatment in the workplace. “They should be the one who would want to actually intervene and stand up for someone,” Derfler-Rozin said. “But they will only do so if they have a sense of high status in other domains of their lives, and not only at the workplace.”

The research focused on four studies including testing an entire model using a team-based field study and found that the individual's fear of retaliation outweighs the victim’s experience as a result of the supervisory mistreatment, even for those who have respect in the eyes of others in the group, unless they have a sense of stability in their overall ‘status portfolio’ across different domains.

“We conducted multiple studies to pinpoint the mechanism, and we found that the mechanism is this general sense of instability. It kind of moves us to be more afraid of retaliation and not intervene,” Derfler-Rozin explained, noting that once respect and status are earned, it becomes part of one's identity, something individuals want to fiercely protect. If the workplace is the only place they feel they have obtained a high status, they worry everything is at stake.

“You would want to have other groups in your life, not just at the workplace. Managers would want to encourage employees to actually have other [outlets],” she said. “If you do have other groups, you are more likely to have status from other places and then it might help you actually be more secure in your status at work.”

She added that while management should encourage employees to belong to other groups outside of the workplace, employees should also be intentional about the kinds of groups they immerse themselves in to ensure it builds a sense of belonging and is a place where they feel respected.

Read Derfler-Rozin’s recent work, “Should I Stand Up for My Mistreated Colleague? When and Why High-Status Team Members Stand Up for their Coworkers.”