Before you learn how to scold, make the standard and the gap visible
In business magazines and training ads, you see phrases like "how to scold your team so they grow," "the right way to correct young employees," and "how to give guidance without being called a bully."
At first glance, it looks like a practical topic that speaks to what managers actually struggle with.
Your team doesn't do what you want.
You don't know how to deal with the younger staff.
You're scared of being accused of power harassment, but you still want to correct people.
For those worries on the manager's side, "how to scold" shows up as a product.
But do the people who read it and put it into practice actually solve anything about their relationship with their team, or about developing them?
After learning "how to scold," is the employee growing in a positive way?
Or has the boss just learned to get angry a little more safely?
I feel a pretty big sense of unease here.
The problem isn't "how to scold."
Isn't the way the problem is framed off in the first place?
"I want my team to do what I want" isn't guidance. It's control
First of all, the very idea of "wanting my subordinates to do what I want" is dangerous.
The real question isn't
"How do I make my subordinate move the way I want?"
The questions that should be asked are:
- What actions and results does the job actually require?
- How far along is this person right now?
- Where are they off the standard?
- How do we close that gap?
- Where does the cause lie: in the person, the boss, the team, or the system?
The moment you think "I want them to do what I want," you've drifted from teaching toward domination.
And people are very sensitive to the feeling of being controlled.
On the surface they may say, "Yes, understood."
But inside, they may be thinking:
"This person doesn't want to develop me. They just want to reshape me into something convenient for them."
When someone came down hard on you, did you really agree with them?
Or did you just comply because arguing was a hassle?
Have you ever played along on the surface while thinking "that old geezer" behind their back?
I think bosses should picture this a lot more.
Just because the person who got scolded went quiet doesn't mean they're convinced.
Just because they didn't argue back doesn't mean they trust you.
They may simply have pretended to go along to end the moment sooner.
Is that really a comfortable environment for the employee?
Is it a relationship where boss and subordinate can both work comfortably?
Or are you just piling up surface obedience and resentment underneath?
Through the lens of self-determination theory, "do it my way" guidance is a bad fit
According to self-determination theory, three things matter for human motivation: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Roughly speaking, people are more likely to be driven from within when they have
- a sense that they're making their own choices
- a sense that they're getting better at things
- a sense of being supported, and that the relationship isn't being cut off
Conversely, lines like "just do what I say," "it's common sense, isn't it?", "do it without being told," and "act the way I expect" tend to strip away autonomy.
Then even if behavior changes for a while, inner motivation has a hard time growing.
Scolding someone into action can look effective in the short term.
But is that really growth?
Or is it just avoidance behavior to keep from getting yelled at?
Get this wrong, and the workplace turns more and more into surface only.
"I do it so I won't get scolded."
"I only play along in front of the boss."
"I don't say anything extra."
"I hide mistakes."
"Asking for help is a pain, so I keep quiet."
That's the atmosphere you get.
I can't see people growing in that.
When people feel controlled, they push back
There's a concept called psychological reactance.
Put simply, when people feel their freedom is being threatened, they tend to push back in order to win that freedom back.
So a boss who goes looking for "ways to make subordinates move" is already in dangerous territory.
The other person is not a remote-control car.
You can't control another person's inner world.
What a boss can do is
- define the standard
- say where things stand now
- explain the gap
- propose ways to improve
- show how much support is available
- make clear what the consequences are if someone steps outside the line
That's as far as it goes.
How the person receives it, what they choose, and how they make it their own all belong to them.
Try to take even that away, and people push back.
At the very least, trust goes down.
And once trust goes down, guidance works less and less.
Guidance isn't about getting angry. Isn't it about making the gap visible?
I think what guidance really needs is much simpler.
Show what it should look like.
Look at where things stand now.
Put the gap into words.
Say specifically what needs fixing.
If needed, offer support and set conditions.
In other words, guidance isn't "getting angry." It's "making the gap visible."
For example, if something is lacking at work, you can just say:
- This part is already working
- This element is missing
- If you fix it this way, it'll improve
- I think you can make that correction
Just those four things.
Is there any need to add the emotional theater of "scolding" to something that's settled that way?
Of course, when there's dangerous behavior, a legal violation, harm to others, or someone keeps breaking the same rule, warnings, cautions and disciplinary action are necessary.
But that isn't "scolding to help them grow." That's "dealing with a rule violation."
Just think of it as a traffic violation
Traffic violations make it easy to see.
There's a speed limit.
There's a stop line.
There are traffic lights.
If you depart from those rules, you get a penalty for the part where you departed.
Guidance at work should work the same way.
"For this task, this is the standard."
"This time, this part was off the standard."
"From next time, please do this part this way."
"If the same deviation continues, this is how we'll respond."
That, I understand.
But in most workplaces, those white lines haven't been drawn.
There's no standard.
Expectations aren't shared.
The line between out and safe is blurry.
And yet if you stray from the "normal" that exists only inside the boss's head, you get scolded.
That's not guidance. It's closer to grading after the fact.
"You should know that already."
"I can't see any motivation."
"You've got no initiative."
"Think harder and act."
"Back in my day, this is how it was."
Lines like these are like writing traffic tickets without ever painting the white lines.
A feelings-based traffic ticket, in other words.
Want to scold without being called a power harasser? First define where "out" and "safe" are
"I'm scared of being accused of power harassment, but I still want to correct people."
I think this worry is also framed the wrong way.
What's needed isn't "a way of scolding that won't get you called a power harasser."
What's needed is to define
- what is actually necessary for the job
- how far counts as reasonable
- where it becomes out of bounds
- what needs to be said and what doesn't
- why attacks on someone's character, intimidation, public shaming, yelling, sarcasm and hours-long grilling are unnecessary
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare lays it out this way: workplace power harassment is behavior that relies on a power imbalance, goes beyond what is necessary and reasonable for the job, and harms the workers' working environment. Conversely, proper work instructions and guidance that are, by an objective view, necessary and reasonable for the job do not count as power harassment.
So what matters isn't "being good at getting angry."
It's what is necessary for the job, how far is reasonable, and where it turns into "out." The point is to define that objectively and share it across the workplace.
Before looking for "how to scold without being called a power harasser," define where "out" and "safe" are.
The "scolding skills business" can end up just soothing the boss's anxiety
When business magazines and training providers turn "how to scold" into a product, bosses may take away this message:
"So scolding itself is necessary after all."
"The problem isn't scolding, it's how you scold."
"I just need to correct people skillfully so I don't get called a power harasser."
But that's not what we should really be asking.
What we should ask is:
- Is the standard for guidance written down?
- Is it shared with the team members?
- Are the boss's personal moods and preferences being rephrased to sound like education?
- Has it been turned into something the person can actually improve on?
- Do you want to develop this person, or do you just want them to do what you want?
Learning how to scold may ease the boss's anxiety a little.
But if the standard stays vague, the problem on the ground isn't solved.
All you get is an old exercise of power wrapped in modern gift paper.
Before getting better at "scolding," I think we should rethink how guidance is designed.
Where there's no psychological safety, learning stops
Research on psychological safety says that feeling safe to take interpersonal risks within a team is linked to learning behavior.
In a workplace, that looks like
- being able to say you don't understand
- being able to report mistakes
- being able to ask for help
- being able to voice disagreement
- being able to suggest improvements
That's the state it describes.
In a workplace with heavy scolding, this becomes hard to achieve.
That's because subordinates defend themselves before they learn.
Don't get yelled at.
Don't say anything odd.
Don't stand out.
Don't get stuck with the blame.
When that happens, the workplace goes quiet.
To the boss, it may look like problems have decreased.
But in reality, the voices may just have disappeared.
That isn't improvement.
It's silence.
Bosses also get an easier time once they accept "you can't control other people"
Trying to control other people is exhausting for the boss, too.
"Why don't they get it?"
"Why don't they do what I said?"
"Why won't they show some drive?"
"Why aren't they growing the way I expected?"
You end up irritated all the time.
But you can simply start from this premise:
You can't control another person's inner world.
All you can do is set up the standards, the environment, the support and the conditions.
Once you think that way, what you should do gets a lot clearer.
A boss's role isn't "operating" people.
It's "designing."
It's not about turning your subordinate into a remote-control car, but about building a road they can drive down themselves.
Paint the white lines.
Put up the signs.
Show the speed limit.
Share where the danger zones are.
And if someone still strays, deal only with the part where they strayed.
That's enough.
Conclusion: Don't teach the monkey how to scold. Paint the white lines first
The reason scolding-based education fails isn't that bosses are bad at scolding.
In most cases, the guidance was designed on the wrong premise to begin with: that scolding comes first.
There's no standard.
The current state isn't visible.
The gap isn't explained.
The lines for "out" and "safe" aren't shared.
And the boss's emotions and expectations get thrown at subordinates wearing the mask of education.
With this, people are hard to develop.
What's needed isn't "scolding skills training" but "standard-design training."
Instead of wanting subordinates to do what you want, create a state in which they can choose again, by themselves, the actions the job requires.
To get there, make the ideal state, the current state, the gap, the way to fix it, the support and the conditions visible.
Before learning how to scold, paint the white lines.
Put up the signs.
Show the speed limit.
Define what counts as a violation.
And if someone still strays, deal only with the part where they strayed.
Don't teach the monkey how to scold.
First, make the rules and standards visible.
References and sources
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan), "Akarui Shokuba Ouendan: What is power harassment?" (a government site supporting harassment-free workplaces)
https://www.no-harassment.mhlw.go.jp/foundation/harassment_list/power-hara/ - Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan), "Materials on harassment in the workplace"
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11900000/001338359.pdf - Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being.
https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2000_RyanDeci_SDT.pdf - Steindl, C. et al. (2015). Understanding Psychological Reactance.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4675534/ - Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2307/2666999 - Example of a scolding-skills training product on the market: Insource, "Training to draw out your team's motivation: the scolding edition"
https://www.insource.co.jp/bup/bup_motivate_shikarikata.html - Example of a scolding-skills training product on the market: SMBC Consulting, "Training on praising and scolding your team"
https://www.smbcc-education.jp/training/training_skill/training_praise-scold/index.html
