Employees Breaking the Chain of Command - Need to be Heard

Employees sometimes feel the need to go over their boss’s head and take their problem higher up the chain of command. Understanding why this happens can help leaders address underlying organisational problems.

The three main reasons that employees go around their boss are very clear.

You're not listening to me!
The greatest number of cases involve unresponsiveness; supervisor or managerial inaction. When an employee questions or expresses dissent to a manager, it was either dismissed, ignored or re-buffed with an unfulfilled promise.

You have no idea what you're doing!
The second driving force was a manager’s apparent incompetence or low performance. Employees regularly report concerns about how their boss is performing; mismanaged tasks, scheduling vacations, managing workflow processes, conducting performance evaluations, etc.

You're only out for yourself!
The third option is unfortunately about questionable behaviour carried out by the manager. This can include employee harassment, (both physical and emotional/psychological) unethical behaviour, and regular or blatant abuses of organisational policies and practices.

Suffering abuse from, finding fault with, or having reduced respect for their managers and supervisors is fundamentally the reason most employees decided to circumvent them.

Why are you bringing me this?
If you are approached by an employee who has skipped around the normal chain of command, it is your duty to give it some close thought. Employees who break the chain of command do so reluctantly and with some fore-thought. Many times they feel the need to emphasise their point and the unethical nature of the complaint.

Perhaps they have exaggerated the severity or urgency of the topic, but this is done to justify going around their manager. You need to be aware of this, because if you also dismiss this approach as being trivial or concocted, then you are in danger of commiting a greater sin against the individual, his colleagues, with whom he will share his experience, the organisation and yourself.

You will be seen to be endorsing a poor manager who is operating at a low level, abusing employees and implementing bad practices. You risk being condemned by the employees as being of a similar vain.

Conclusion
Employees will only circumvent their manager and reach out to someone higher in the organisation after a great deal of soul searching and when they feel they have good cause. They are being dismissed, ignored, and /or abused. Are you listening?