When “I Wouldn’t” Becomes “You Shouldn’t”

What happens when personal preference starts functioning as a workplace standard?

It’s a question we will all encounter, whether we’re the ones who need to examine our own preferences and how they shape what we believe is or isn’t appropriate, acceptable, or right for someone else, or we’re on the receiving end of someone else’s preferences shaping how they assess our choices, character, competence, potential, or fit.

A recent experience on LinkedIn made our Founder ponder how the “I wouldn’t, so you shouldn’t” mindset shows up in organizations, impacting the workplace and the people in it.

That experience also caused us to wonder what research might help explain and support the potential impacts of this mindset. What we found became part of an article originally published on LinkedIn, which we’ve adapted for this Gem through a broader personal, leadership, and organizational lens.

We encounter things every day that we don’t like, wouldn’t do, wouldn’t say, or wouldn’t choose for ourselves. The question is what happens when:

“I don’t think this is right for me.”

becomes

“This isn’t right for you.”

One is a preference. The other assumes authority.

There’s actually a name for part of this.

Psychological research describes something called naïve realism: our tendency to experience our own perception as an objective read on reality. The false-consensus effect adds another layer: we can overestimate how widely our own judgments and choices are shared.

Francis Flynn and Scott Wiltermuth found this in a workplace context too: people overestimated how much colleagues agreed with their ethical judgments, and people who were more centrally positioned in workplace advice networks showed greater false-consensus bias.

Put the two together and you can see how “this is how I see it” becomes “this is how it is.”

That doesn’t mean every disagreement is naïve realism. And it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have opinions, preferences, or standards.

The question is what happens after the preference.

Can we recognize that something isn’t for us without deciding that it shouldn’t be for someone else?

That distinction is important in our personal relationships, and it becomes increasingly consequential in organizations where individual judgments can influence decisions about other people.

When preference starts making decisions

At work, the line between preference and standard isn’t always as obvious as someone telling you what you should or shouldn’t do. Sometimes it shows up in decisions we don’t give a second thought.

Who gets invited to lunch. Who gets included in the informal conversation. Who someone thinks to call, introduce, or bring along. Who gets offered the assignment that requires travel and who doesn’t because someone assumes a parent won’t want it. Who is seen as committed because they’re highly visible in the office and who has to prove their commitment another way. Who sounds like a leader is supposed to sound, and who doesn’t.

These aren’t just observations about people. They can become decisions about people.

Take the assumption about parents and caregivers. In experiments examining promotion decisions, Madeline Heilman and Tyler Okimoto found that mothers were expected to be less competent and received less favorable screening recommendations for traditionally male jobs.

A manager may believe they’re being considerate by deciding, without asking, that a parent probably wouldn’t want a demanding opportunity.

Except no one asked the parent.

When we fill in the blanks for people, our assumptions can start making choices for them.

Whether it’s a parent we assume doesn’t want to travel, an employee we assume is less committed because we don’t see them in the office as often, or someone whose communication style doesn’t match what we think a leader should sound like, the question underneath it is the same:

Are we responding to what this person has actually demonstrated, asked for, or chosen? Or are we filling in the blanks for them?

Power changes the consequences.

In our personal lives, we may be able to ignore someone else’s opinion, disagree with it, or decide it has no bearing on the choices we make.

We don’t always have that option at work.

Put the same “I wouldn’t, so you shouldn’t” instinct in the hands of someone who can decide who gets the stretch assignment, who meets the client, who gets introduced to the executive, who is considered ready for promotion, who gets hired, or who is considered “professional,” and the consequences are different.

Now a personal preference can become an allocation decision.

In five experiments, Nathanael Fast and colleagues found that experiencing power increased overconfidence in decision-making, including in decisions that resulted in monetary losses. That doesn’t mean people with power are automatically biased or make poor decisions. It does mean certainty in our own judgment deserves examination when that judgment controls resources and opportunities for other people.

Organizations need standards. There are legitimate expectations tied to performance, ethics, safety, fairness, client requirements, and how people work together.

The problem is unexamined preference being granted the authority of a standard.

So how do we know which one we’re dealing with?

When we’re on the receiving end of feedback or correction, it can be useful to ask: Is this an actual standard, useful feedback, or someone’s preference?

If it’s a standard, what is the standard?

If it’s feedback, what outcome is the feedback connected to?

For leaders, managers, and others with influence, the question goes the other direction:

What outcome is this standard protecting, and what evidence do we have that this person’s approach is getting in the way of it?

Maybe there’s a good answer. Maybe the behavior is affecting performance. Maybe there’s an ethical, safety, fairness, legal, client, or business requirement. If there is, name it.

But if we can’t get much further than “that’s not how I would do it,” that deserves attention too.

Sometimes something is wrong. Sometimes feedback is necessary. Sometimes there is a standard that needs to be upheld.

And sometimes?

It’s just not for you.

Because our preferences can be completely valid without becoming someone else’s rules.

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Sources & Further Reading

Research

Ross, L., & Ward, A. (1996). Naïve Realism in Everyday Life: Implications for Social Conflict and Misunderstanding.

Ross, L., Greene, D., & House, P. (1977). The “False Consensus Effect”: An Egocentric Bias in Social Perception and Attribution Processes.

Flynn, F. J., & Wiltermuth, S. S. (2010). Who’s With Me? False Consensus, Brokerage, and Ethical Decision Making in Organizations.

Heilman, M. E., & Okimoto, T. G. (2008). Motherhood: A Potential Source of Bias in Employment Decisions.

Fernández-Lozano, I., González, M. J., Jurado-Guerrero, T., & Martínez-Pastor, J.-I. (2020). The Hidden Cost of Flexibility: A Factorial Survey Experiment on Job Promotion.

Fast, N. J., Sivanathan, N., Mayer, N. D., & Galinsky, A. D. (2012). Power and Overconfident Decision-Making.