Giving and Summoning Autonomy Support in Hierarchical Relationships

Abstract

It is not easy to motivate and engage others in a way that is welcomed, effective, and relationship-enriching. In a hierarchical relationship, supervisors' motivating styles and supervisees' agentic engagementdisengagement are often in conf lict, rather than in synch. Still, reciprocal causation appears to be a naturally occurring process within these relationships, as supervisors' motivating styles longitudinally transform supervisees' engagement-disengagement, just as supervisees' engagement-disengagement transforms and summons the supervisors' motivating styles. Recognizing this, the article highlights an intervention-based program of research designed to help infuse greater autonomy support and greater agentic engagement into the supervisor-supervisee relationship. When an experimentally based intervention helps supervisors learn how to become more autonomy supportive, interaction partners become more in synch, and this mutually supportive relationship dynamic yields numerous benefits for the supervisor, the supervisee, and the relationship. Future interventions are needed to understand what happens when supervisees learn how to become more agentically engaged. The conclusion is that relationships need and benefit from infusions of both the giving and the summoning of autonomy support.Hierarchical relationships are those in which caretakers have responsibility for the safety, functioning, productivity, and well-being of those for whom they care. Within the context of these relationships (e.g., teacher-student, parent-child, doctor-client, coach-athlete, managerworker), the supervisor's effort to motivate the supervisee is an everyday occurrence. It is too often done rather poorly, however. Commonly, the engagement request (e.g., brush your teeth, greet each customer warmly) creates conf lict within the relationship. Such conf lict need not occur, as the empirical study of how one person can nurture and support the volitional engagement of another is now a sophisticated literature (). The two-fold purpose of this article is, first, to look into that literature to understand how motivating others can be done in a way that is welcomed, effective, and relationship-enriching and, second, to present an intervention-based program of research on the benefits of giving and summoning autonomy support within a hierarchical relationship.Before pursuing these two purposes, try this introductory exercise. Take a moment to observe an interaction in which one person tries to motivate another (e.g., a tutor encourages a tutee to try something new). You will see a motivating style emerge from the supervisor and, soon after, an engagement versus disengagement reaction from the supervisee. As the supervisee's engagement versus disengagement becomes apparent, you will then see a supporting versus controlling reaction from the supervisor. After a few minutes, this transactional process (e.g., tutor inf luences tutee, tutee inf luences tutor) will become apparent and reveal how "in synch" or in conf lict the two interaction partner...

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