What motivates subordinates to engage in upward distortion and how can it negatively impact an organization?

4

Reading 3 discusses how subordinates will sometimes willfully engage in distortion with their superiors. What motivates subordinates to engage in upward distortion and how can it negatively impact an organization? From your perspective, what could a superior do to reduce the prevalence of upward distortion?

Question 4

There are several reasons why employees engage in distortion with their superiors such as no one wants to be the bearer of bad news, where that was caused by them or by others, so employees distort information. The second reason is that, if the negative news is related to a performance of their supervisor they do not want to seem like they are criticizing him/ her so they distort the information, the third one is a combination of factors such as the need for promotion, level of trust and motivation.

Upward distortion will have a negative effect on an organization because the management will not be aware of what is going on in the company. Things will be vague so when decisions are passed, they might not be the right decision because the manager is not aware of the whole situation so they will not have the intended effect.

I think having an open-door policy where employees are encouraged to talk openly without facing consequences is a good way to battle upward distortion. The other thing is having an anonymous way for employees to share information with their managers.