A lot of industrial jobs have the potential to kill many more people than a misfiled HR report in the BFE USAF Base. Whether the order is life or death is irrelevant to whether people are being insubordinate.
The distinction I would make in the civilian world is that refusal to follow directions or produce adequate work product is a “non-performance”, but flatly refusing to do something that is a basic requirement of employment is insubordination. As an example, when I was a manager I had an employee who was not completing the tasks I assigned to him in a timely fashion or producing useable product, and would often disappear in mid-day for hours without explanation. When confronted about it he claimed that expectations I had for him were unreasonable (they weren’t; I actually gave him the most straightforward tasks I could find and tripled the estimate of what it would take me to do the same work) but never flatly refused to work. (When I tried to pursue the corporate “Performance Improvement Process” HR classified the problem as “poor management oversight” and I was criticized for “not providing adequate counseling”, which was bizarre because I easily spent an average of ~10% of my workday showing this employee how to do the job he was supposed to have three decades of experience at, often completing his work for him as an example to him of what my expectations were.). Although I was very frustrated with him and the entire situation, I couldn’t regard it as insubordination as he never refused to do work, just argued that it was beyond the scope of his skills or had unreasonable expectations.
However, the employee got himself in a tangle over a security issue, and the facility security officer instigated a security investigation and interview, in which the employee flatly refused to answer questions that were a clearly defined part of holding a security clearance, and therefore satisfying the requirements of the job. The FSO determined that he could not continue to work in the facility without answering the questions (which were completely innoculous; basically, if he was involved in any lawsuits or had any pending legal actions in which he was involved). This was very clearly insubordination, as I couldn’t have him continue to work without FSO approval which was an esssential condition of his employement.
The coda to the story gets better, though. HR, which primarily exists for the purpose of protecting the company from liability, determined that it was still my problem in counseling him and that I needed to somehow resolve the issue without calling it insubordination. The employee solved the issue for me by creating a “hostile work environment” with another person and HR had no choice but to investigate and take action against both the employee for his behavior, and me for “managerial misconduct” in “allowing” the employee to blow up and threaten someone, I guess, although how I was supposed to prevent that was never adequately explained. However, his refusal to answer security questions in both the security interview and employment outbrief was noted for the record as being insubordination, so I guess it mattered that he was doing it to HR rather than just me and the FSO.
Practically speaking, it shouldn’t matter whether you refuse to do the job or just are too vocationally incompetent to do it; a manager should have the ability to terminate your employement regardless if you’ve been presented with the expectations and fail to improve. Realistically, the difference between refusal and incompetence should be a clear cause for immediate termination…unless you are dealing with a gutless, lazy, sack-of-shit HR representative and a corporate culture of insouciance toward work performance.
Stranger
In the U.S. you can fire someone for insubordination - and its a for cause reason. I’d rather call it a bad attitude myself.
I have an issue with the word used in school, where its used to mean “disrespectful to authority” I don’t mind my kids getting dinged for being disrespectful, but I think everyone is worthy of respect, and people tend to give respect when they are given it in return, and when my kids aren’t being treated respectfully it doesn’t surprise me when they stand up for themselves, it isn’t insubordination - since I don’t think students are subordinate to administration. (Nor do I think administration is subordinate to students or parents).
My sister once got fired for refusing, during her first week on the job, to pay out of pocket for plane tickets, hotel, etc. to a conference in another city (and presumably be reimbursed later). She couldn’t have done it if she wanted to; she had no money and no credit card. Her boss not only fired her, but contested her unemployment benefits. My sister didn’t get her job back, but she did get her unemployment benefits on the grounds that refusing to do something that she shouldn’t have been required to do is not insubordination.
Many, many jobs in the civilian world carry life or death responsibilities. One of my neighbors is an air traffic controller. Another is a surgeon. My son is an airline pilot. My current job is writing software for digital flight controls. Prior to that I wrote guidance and navigation software. Before that I was a flight instructor. Before that a crane operator on offshore rigs. Before that an EMT for an ambulance company. Before that I was a truck driver. Every job I’ve had since the seventies would likely kill people if I screwed up.
As to the OP’s question, I looked up the policies in our employee manual yesterday on obeying orders, etc. Here’s a partial list of offenses which could lead to termination:
- Refusing to perform work as directed or willfully neglecting your duty.
- Disobedience, disrespect or insubordination to persons having authority to direct.
- Conduct (on or off the job) of a criminal, dishonest, illegal or unethical nature that would reflect unfavorably on the company.
- Bizarre or notoriously disgraceful conduct.
- Excessive indebtedness or recurring financial difficulties.
I signed an agreement that I understood and would obey these rules as a condition of employment. I have to re-sign it annually.
I’m puzzled why anyone would think insubordination only applies to the military world or is inappropriate to the civilian. My wife is a manager and recently had to shut down a heated political disagreement between two employees. Her exact words (as she told me later) were: “You are forbidden to talk politics in this office, period. If you don’t like it, the door is right there - feel free to walk out and find another job.”
Allowing insubordination from employees seems like a quick way to go out of business to me.
Deliberately undermining orders is cause or warning or termination. It’s insubordinate and intolerable.
Grousing a bit to your peers is just life, but openly spreading shit about what your boss is telling you to the point that it is disruptive can rise to the level of being insubordinate.
[QUOTE=thatguyjeff]
When you hear someone say, “Soandso isn’t doing their job,” that means Soandso is being insubordinate.
[/QUOTE]
No, that’s not true.
Soandso might not be doing their job for many reasons other than insubordination. Perhaps she is incompetent. Perhaps she lacks the resources to get the job done. Perhaps the process before hers is not communicating the correct information. Perhaps she is physically ill. Perhaps she has been given conflicting instructions. There are many reasons a person can fail in their job.
Insubordination is, specifically, a conscious refusal to play one’s subordinate role. As a person who is in a subordinate role - e.g. you have a boss - you must execute the duties of that role, which includes not only assigned tasks but also a measure of respect for the hierarchy of the organization. A person who is merely stupid and can’t figure out how to use the new document management system is not “insubordinate.” A person who refuses to use the new document management system 'cause it’s stupid and he tells his boss, forget it, I won’t do what you tell me, is insubordinate.
I think that Westerners, having a mindset of egalitarian individualism, have a psychological allergy to subordination. “It’s a free country, and you’re no better than me!”
But if I get to make a decision and punish you for not complying with it, you are subordinate to me. Period. That’s a concept that gives some folks the willies, to the point of strenuously arguing against indisputable fact.
Which Westerners, the ones in John Wayne movies?
I think part of the whole military vs. civilian divide is that the subordinate relationships in the military are emphasized in every aspect of communication. When I speak to my 3 levels up boss, which I do a few times a month, I call him Albert, because that’s his name. If I was in the military, I’d be calling him Sir, or Major, and could get in trouble just for calling him something else. Even (as I understand it), if I ran into him at the supermarket or our kids’ soccer game, not just at work.
What’s the point of having a job? You do what the boss wants because otherwise you don’t get paid. And your boss tells you what to do because otherwise their boss won’t pay them.
If you don’t want to do what you boss tells you to do, you don’t have to. And then your boss stops sending you your paycheck.
Of course this doesn’t mean that if you want to keep getting paid you have to do whatever your boss says, no matter how ridiculous. If your boss is being unreasonable–like asking you do run personal errands, or suck his cock, or set homeless orphans on fire–then you can complain to his boss, or call the cops. Of course if your boss gets arrested or fired then your job might nor might not exist after that.
But as a normal human being there are plenty of things I won’t do just because my boss asks me to. Even if that means getting fired.
I believe it’s more of an American trait than a Western trait. I feel Europeans are generally more comfortable with a hierarchy than Americans are.
The term does seem silly, and one I associate with boarding school or the military. Although it’s probably accurate.
When I work, or when someone works for me, we are entering into a mutual-beneficial exchange with some terms spelled out. If either party wishes to exit that arrangement, for instance of one party no longer feels that it’s beneficial, we’re both free to do so. It has nothing to do with justification, superiors, orders, whatever. If my boss only wants to pay people who will do what she says when she says it, she probably won’t want to keep paying me when I don’t. But if she recognizing that I’m still worth keeping around even when I give her a flat “I’m not doing that”, then she will. It doesn’t happen much, and her job is mostly just to clear obstacles for me to do what I want as long as it’s billable. But it happened a lot on the last job. That one was mostly ignoring, a few refusals, and one “you are wasting my time” email. The guy still asked if I could stick around an extra two weeks when I finally left.
But if you’re easily replaceable, good luck and don’t be surprised.
I have seen two people fired for insubordination—I’ve seen plenty more who should have been.
The one I remember most clearly is a project leader was speaking at a meeting for our team with the new VP of Engineering in attendance. The PL must have said something that the VP had instructed the project leaders not to say (the VP was brought on for a reason) and he asked the PL to step out into the hallway with him. In 5 minutes the VP came back in and took over running the meeting, while the PL was being walked out of the building.
Well, its the only one of those that is pertinent to the word insubordination is this one:
- Disobedience, disrespect or insubordination to persons having authority to direct.
You should be respectful to everyone - not just those with authority to direct. When you are disrepectful to a peer, it isn’t insubordination - if disrepect is a possible firing offense, it should be regardless of whom you are disrespectful to.
Disobedience to someone giving you work direction is “not doing you job” - unless there are extenuating circumastance - I don’t think that should come under insubordination - that’s lack of performance.
The word insubordination puts unnecessary weight on relative position in an org chart, which - in the case of a racist, sexist, or just abusive manager - can be misused.
Related but different offenses. Not getting along with others is something which causes harm to the workplace and should result in discipline.
However, disrespect to a boss is seen by most as a more serious offense for good reason. The superior is the face of the company and employees should have more respect for that.
This is not to say that people need to kiss the floor whenever a supervisor walks by. Blind obedience is not the solution either.
No. A lack of performance is different.
Insubordination is a conscious refusal to follow reasonable directions where a lack of performance is an inability to perform to standards or is caused by negligence. Not completing assignments on time because you are writing long replies on the Dope is [del]admirable[/del] [del]gutsy[/del] a lack of performance.
When your boss comes and catches you, looking at her right in the eye and refusing to get back to work is insubordination. While either one will usually result in discipline, outright insubordination often gets a stricter, more immediate punishment. In my experience, people who have tried that have gotten fired.
Org charts are there for a reason. Companies are not democracies and they need a method of providing instructions from the top down.
If a manager is racist, sexist or abusive, that is a separate problem. People are not required to submit to abusive leaders but they are required to follow the correct direction of their superiors.