The deadly deadline dilemma
Previous studies have focused on how deadlines affect employees’ productivity and stress levels, but lead researcher Sam Maglio’s team wanted to know how missing a deadline changes an outsider’s perception. To test this, the researchers conducted 18 different experiments with thousands of people, from managers and HR professionals to everyday folks, evaluating a wide range of creative and professional work.In the test, participants saw the same exact work samples — like photography, product pitches, news articles, and art — but they were told it was submitted either early, on time, or late. And guess what? The late submissions were consistently rated as lower quality, despite being identical to those submitted on time.
Maglio explains, “Everyone saw the exact same art contest entry, school submission, or business proposal, but they couldn’t help but use their knowledge of when it came in to guide their evaluation of how good it was.” In other words, once people knew something was late, it was hard not to think less of it.
Early birds don’t really get extra credit, but late birds do lose points
Interestingly, turning in work early didn’t seem to earn extra praise. Evaluators ranked work that came in early and on time as equally good, which means there’s no major boost for those overachievers who submit work ahead of the deadline. But the real problem comes if you’re late — even by a little. In fact, it didn’t matter if the work was one day or one week late; the hit to quality ratings was the same.Late submissions were rated as poorly as work that objectively missed the mark, like not meeting word counts. And it turns out that advance warning doesn’t do much to soften the blow — one missed deadline still chipped away at the evaluator’s view of the employee’s competence and integrity, even if they were usually punctual.
But here’s where it gets even trickier: evaluators didn’t just judge the work as poorer in quality — they also saw the latecomer as less reliable and were less likely to consider them for future tasks. One missed deadline could, in theory, limit your future opportunities to shine or earn promotions.
The researchers even tested this with high school students in China, who were shown art entries with the submission dates marked as either early, on time, or late. Even though they were told to ignore everything except the artwork itself, the “late” pieces received lower grades. And that’s with peers evaluating peers, so it didn’t matter if a boss or manager had set the deadline — missing it still left a mark.
Let your manager know!
Luckily, not all hope is lost for late submitters. Maglio’s team found that the reason behind a missed deadline actually mattered. If the delay was due to uncontrollable events — like jury duty or a medical emergency — people cut the submitter more slack. The same was true if the deadline was a “soft” one rather than a hard cutoff, or if the work wasn’t particularly critical.“Communication around deadlines is vital. If it’s a hard, and not a soft, deadline, you as the manager should let your employees know,” Maglio explained. “If the reason why you missed the deadline was beyond your control, you as the employee should let your manager know.”
The findings of this study have been published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes and can be accessed here.