Santa, Sponsorship, and Short-circuiting Workplace Bullies

The modern workplace is more diverse than ever. Bringing together people from different backgrounds can spur productivity—or spark disagreements, and even mistreatment.

Managers facing discord should draw inspiration from Santa Claus’s deft handling of one well-known workplace bullying incident. 

While  racial, gender, generational and ethnic differences can inspire innovation and creativity on diverse teams, we also know employees from different backgrounds may be more likely to dislike each other. That dislike sometimes takes the form of workplace incivility—frequent subtle and rude behaviors. In fact, as organizations have made efforts to limit harassment, incivility has become the way for employees to psychologically hurt their coworkers. 

Incivility is popular because it’s difficult to detect and doesn’t necessarily violate the rules. Much research (including my own) shows that uncivil behavior such as bullying and social exclusion is a growing and costly problem for organizations. Incivility threatens victims’ sense of belonging, leading to low job satisfaction, commitment, and performance, as well as high burnout, turnover intentions and actual turnover. 

Thus, managing incivility is a problem for leaders and organizations. And leaders who can’t manage incivility risk seeming weak and ineffective. 

So, what should they do? For an answer, we turn to Rudolph, Santa, and all of the other (mean) reindeer:

All of the other reindeer 
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games

It’s clear here that Rudolph was a victim of workplace incivility. He experienced both bullying (name calling) and exclusion (being left out of informal workplace socialization activities). As we learn from the rest of the song (and the countless books, movies and TV specials it spawned), this bullying occurred because Rudolph’s bright red nose made him different. And he experienced strong negative emotions as a result of the way he was treated. 

Those feelings affected his job satisfaction and performance. In the 1964 TV special, he even walked off the job to visit the Island of Misfit Toys, nearly missing an important deadline (Christmas Eve).

Sponsorship Saves the Day

Enter Santa. By making Rudolph the “sleigh-leading” reindeer one foggy Christmas eve, he shows how a leader can use sponsorship to help an employee who is a victim of incivility. 

According to the work of Kathy Kram, sponsorship occurs when a senior employee (often a mentor, supervisor or leader) shares their influence, relationships or power with a less experienced employee to help them or advance their career. While sponsorship is often the act of a mentor, one does not need to be a mentor to be a sponsor. 

Santa’s sponsorship empowered Rudolph and signaled to the other reindeer that they should value him, too. Santa’s  message to them was, effectively: “If you mess with Rudolph, you’re messing with me. The reindeer responded to Santa’s actions favorably: The song suggests they all loved Rudolph following Santa’s action. 

Other research shows that this is a common effect of sponsorship. Matthew Bowler and Dan Brass have shown that employees who are connected to other influential employees tend to receive more help from their coworkers, and Ronald Burt’s studies consistently show that sponsorship leads to raises and promotions for employees previously perceived to be less legitimate (e.g., being younger or a minority). 

Santa’s sponsorship conferred the legitimacy and status Rudolph needed to escape the mistreatment he was experiencing. Yet, there are some important nuances that warrant mention. 

First, research by Raymond Sparrowe and Robert Liden shows that sponsorship is most effective when leaders are well-connected in their organizations and respected by their followers. Santa seems to be universally loved, but if he were a boss who treated his employees unfairly, his actions may not have helped this situation. 

Second, Santa found an authentic opportunity for Rudolph that capitalized on what was special about him (a bright nose) in a specific situation (dense fog). He didn’t simply put Rudolph in an unearned higher-level position. Doing so, research by Michelle Duffy and Kristin Scott suggests,  probably would have increased the intensity of the mistreatment Rudolph experienced because his coworkers would have envied him and resented the fact that he was promoted. 

So, sponsorship may be effective in curbing workplace incivility But it requires careful advance consideration of the situation.