Entitlement is creeping into day-to-day work. Here’s how to counter it with clear expectations, real teamwork, and recognition tied to impact.
Lately, there’s a sharper edge of entitlement in day-to-day life—at work, in neighborhoods, even within families. Maybe it’s the pandemic hangover, social media, or the broader political climate. Whatever the cause, more people are leading with “me” instead of “we.”
This isn’t a generational thing; I see it across roles and age groups in IT, where our job is often helping someone through a frustrating moment. Below are the patterns I’m seeing—and how to shift them.
1) The Me-First Mindset
What it looks like
- “I’m done for the week; that ticket or issue can wait.”
- Eye-rolling at user issues instead of acknowledging the impact.
- Prioritizing personal convenience over a teammates or a client’s urgency.
Why it’s a problem
Our work exists because someone else is blocked. Treating their problem as an interruption delays resolution and signals that their time matters less than ours.
Do this instead
- Lead with context: Ask, “What’s the impact if this waits?” Then triage.
- Own the handoff: If you can’t do it now, schedule it and communicate the plan.
- Model empathy: “I know this is frustrating—here’s what I’m doing next.”
2) The Cult of Busyness
What it looks like
- Constantly telling people how buried you are.
- Spending more time describing the workload than doing the work.
- Not putting in a focused eight hours—yet insisting nothing else can fit.
- Refusing to train or document work, so every request must come through you.
- Punting routine updates and upgrades because you’re “too busy,” letting technical debt pile up.
- Venting to your manager, then rejecting or ignoring the suggestions offered.
Why it’s a problem
Busyness isn’t impact. “I’m slammed” becomes a shield against accountability and a drag on team momentum. When you won’t train or off-load tasks, you create a single point of failure and lock in your own backlog. Deferred maintenance turns into emergency maintenance—it always costs more and takes longer. And when you complain but refuse to try your manager’s ideas, it rings hollow: you lose credibility and make it harder for others to advocate for you next time.
Do this instead
- Train to delegate: If you won’t teach it, you’ll keep it. Invest an hour now to save dozens later. Pair once, hand off lower-level tasks, and stop re-doing the same work.
- Document the path: Write short SOPs/runbooks and checklists; record a five-minute screen share if that’s faster. Make it easy for others to succeed.
- Plan maintenance intentionally: Work with your manager to schedule upgrades and updates. Put them on the roadmap like any other deliverable and protect the window.
- Guard deep-work time: Block focused hours each day. Communicate when you're heads-down and when you’ll resurface with an update.
- Triage with data: Share your top three priorities and expected completion dates. When new work arrives, ask which item to trade off.
- Act on coaching: Pick one manager's suggestion to implement for two weeks, then report results (“Tried X; outcome Y; next step Z”). If it won’t work, explain constraints and propose an alternative.
- Own your choice: If you decide not to delegate, own the workload—skip the complaints and deliver.
3) Recognition Inflation
What it looks like
- Expecting praise for routine responsibilities.
- Confusing “met expectations” with “went above and beyond.”
- Fishing for compliments when you’ve been in the role for years.
- Turning status updates into self-congratulations or cc’ing leaders for small, everyday tasks.
- Grabbing credit while going quiet when work gets hard or requires cleanup.
- Benchmarking against the lowest bar (“at least it’s done”) instead of the actual standard.
- Expecting praise for taking after-hours/on-call calls that are already part of the job—and then complaining to solicit sympathy.
Why it’s a problem
When everyday tasks require applause, true excellence gets drowned out. Recognition should highlight learning, initiative, and impact—not just attendance. Over-praising the basics lowers the bar, creates “credit chasing,” and erodes trust: the people doing hard, unglamorous work stop raising their hands if the spotlight always goes to the loudest voice. The after-hours martyr routine is especially corrosive—if on-call is part of the role, demanding sympathy for doing it trivializes genuine extra effort.
Do this instead
- Redefine the bar: Meeting expectations is baseline; recognition spotlights growth, quality, ownership, and impact. Make your “Definition of Done” and “Definition of Excellent” visible to the team.
- Ask for feedback, not praise: “What would make this stronger next time?” or “Where should I raise the bar on the next iteration?”
- Respect the on-call agreement: If after-hours response is expected, treat it as baseline. Log the work, take the agreed comp/credit, and skip the sympathy tour. If volume is unsustainable, bring data to adjust rotations, automation, or staffing.
- Show the outcome: Tie wins to measurable change—fewer tickets, faster response, reduced risk, happier users. “Because of X, Y improved by Z%.”
- Share credit generously: Name collaborators and upstream helpers. Own mistakes, credit the team—that’s leadership at any level.
- Document real wins: Keep a monthly “brag doc” of outcomes and lessons learned. It channels recognition requests into facts, not fishing.
- Stretch, then share: Take on a new skill, fix a nagging pain point, automate a tedious task, write a short SOP, or mentor a teammate—then communicate the result.
- Leaders: calibrate kudos: Praise specific behaviors you want repeated (initiative, teaching, thoughtful risk reduction), especially for newcomers and people working outside their comfort zone. Rotate the spotlight, avoid “everyone gets a trophy,” and record kudos in performance notes so it matters later.
- Leaders: make criteria public: Publish what earns recognition (impact, initiative, craft, teamwork, teaching) with examples. This prevents praise inflation and makes the process feel fair.
- Leaders: set clear on-call norms: Share schedules, escalation paths, and comp/comp-time rules. Recognize exceptional cases (major incidents, off-rotation heroics), not routine coverage.
- Keep it time-boxed and sincere: Short, specific, timely recognition beats constant noise. “Great job” is nice; “Your runbook cut our onboarding time by 30%—thank you” changes behavior.
From “Me” to “We”: Practices That Raise Team Maturity
1) Make teamwork real, not rhetorical
Teamwork is often the missing link in IT. It’s more than “be collaborative”—it’s effective communication, sticking to change control, helping teammates during crunch time, and seeking input instead of pushing a pre-baked agenda. When these basics are visible and consistent, entitlement has less room to grow. (Related: Business Maturity)
2) Let metrics do the talking
Clarity kills drama. Track a short list together—SLA adherence, first-contact resolution, and user satisfaction—and keep logs long enough to answer real questions.
3) Be proactively defensive
A “we” culture doesn’t wait for incidents to escalate; it hunts. Use your SIEM to spot risky processes (e.g., PowerShell, PsExec, regedit) early, tune the noise, and close the loop with clear comms.
4) Practice in the lab, not on your users
Skills grow fastest when you can experiment without consequences. Your home lab is where you can mockup problems, learn new tools, and avoid turning production into a science project.
5) Reward ownership and root cause
A “we” culture celebrates people who take problems from symptom to fix. Document, verify, and share lessons learned—the win isn’t just the ticket closure, it’s understanding why it happened.
Manager’s Guardrails (copy/paste into your runbook)
- Service standards: Define response/resolution targets, impact tiers, and what “good” updates look like.
- Visible priorities: Publish weekly; make trade-offs explicit so “no” feels fair.
- Operate from data: Review a tiny KPI set together every week (SLA, FCR, CSAT).
- Coach tone under stress: Role-play tough user conversations.
- Recognize ownership: Shout out people who anticipate needs, close loops, and share fixes.
Quick Checklist (share internally)
- [ ] Ask impact, then triage
- [ ] Communicate the plan and the handoff
- [ ] Post concise status updates
- [ ] Seek feedback over praise
- [ ] Recognize ownership and outcomes
The Bottom Line
Entitlement thrives in ambiguity. When expectations are clear, priorities are visible, learning is safe (in the lab), and recognition is tied to impact, “me first” has less oxygen. Whether you’re supporting a colleague or an end user on a rough day, the job is the same: bring competence, empathy, and momentum.
We don’t need a culture overhaul to fix this. We need more people choosing to be useful, communicative, and accountable—especially when no one is clapping.
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