How Expectations And Beliefs Affect Employee Performance
- May 6, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 5, 2022
Written by: Sílvia Fontquerni, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Have you ever considered how powerful are your expectations and beliefs; and how they may be constantly shaping your reality?
In psychology, it is called the Pygmalion effect, which affirms that your thoughts, beliefs, and expectations towards a situation, a person, or a community will constantly shape the reality into confirming your previous beliefs or expectations. At the workplace, this psychological effect may impact the team effectiveness and performance; organizational culture and work atmosphere; management and leadership styles; as well as employee motivation, engagement, and commitment.
Let’s apply this psychological effect to daily workplace realities to help to understand the meaning of it, for example:
A team welcomes a new starter: a valid person, with a good attitude, skills, and good work ethic.
However, the team and the leader hold the belief the new starter is making too many mistakes; therefore, they believe and expect that the new starter is not good enough or fit for the role. This preconception and expectation will impact not only the focus and the behaviours of the team and the leader but also will support and constantly invite the new starter to make true this belief.
Consequently, the focus of the team and the leader may be on the negative areas, weaknesses, and mistakes rather than the strengths of the new starter. Therefore, this focus will be directly transferred to their actions and responses to the new starter, such as telling off, getting angry more often than usual, or giving negative feedback. The new member may even receive disrespectful comments such as ‘you are trouble’ or being constantly told that this role does not fit him/her, being invited to leave the company.
Reflection: How these previous expectations which are transferred in creating daily reality may impact the company overall?
Will the new starter feel motivated, engaged, and committed to this team?
Will the onboarding member want to make a career in the company and recommend working in this team?
How will these daily behaviours impact the team's effectiveness and performance?
Will these team and leadership behaviours support a good working atmosphere and the company culture?
What type of leadership or management style will these behaviours define?
How will these behaviours impact the company outcomes?
Let’s see the same scenario, but this time with a different team and leader:
In this case, the expectations are that the onboarding member will create a great impact on the team due to the potential hold. Even the new team member currently makes mistakes, or he/she does not believe in his/her potential, this previous team and leadership expectations may be transferred into their behaviours and responses such as being more focused on the strengths, the outcomes, or the intentions rather than the mistakes, even engaging the new member in team projects or offering a career progression within the company. In this team, the new onboarding member feels constantly supported, helped, valued, and recognized.
Reflection: How these previous expectations which are transferred in creating daily reality may impact the company overall?
Will the new starter feel motivated, engaged, and committed to this team?
Will the onboarding member want to make a career in the company and recommend working in this team?
How will these daily behaviours impact the team's effectiveness and performance?
Will these team and leadership behaviours support a good working atmosphere and company culture?
What type of leadership or management style will these behaviours define?
How will these behaviours impact the company outcomes?
One last example:
Let’s say, there is a current good work atmosphere in a team or a workplace regarding the new onboarding member. There are no complaints, everybody like him/her and everybody respects and trusts him/her. However, there is a leader whose expectation is ‘this team member should not be in the company as he/she may become better than him/her’. This belief may be transferred to his/her behaviours in ways such as giving negative feedback about this employee to others, constantly discrediting, and even spreading lies. These spread negative beliefs around the team may then impact on team’s opinion towards this onboarding member, creating a belief of distrust or even labelling the new starter without even getting to know him/her properly without checking if these negative feedbacks are true.
Reflection: How these previous expectations which are transferred in creating daily reality may impact the company overall?
Will the new starter feel motivated, engaged, and committed to this team?
Will the onboarding member want to make a career in the company and recommend working in this team?
How will these daily behaviours impact the team's effectiveness and performance?
Will these team and leadership behaviours support a good working atmosphere and company culture?
What type of leadership or management style will these behaviours define?
How will these behaviours impact the company outcomes?
Is the Pygmalion effect always shaping reality until confirming the previous expectations?
It is always shaping the reality; however, there are a lot of different factors in the game which may support or not in confirming the full expectation.
Which ones?
People's beliefs and how strong or deep they are. How influential people are to be affected by other people's beliefs, level of inner energy vibration, the capacity of checking reality by themselves rather than assuming what other people believe is true, spreading these beliefs around or stopping them to be transferred from person to person, previous inner reality of the employee… the list can go on.
What to recommend to leaders and teams to prevent expectations and beliefs impact negatively on the team and employees?
Do not fall into assuming, judging, or quick conclusions about someone, a team, or a situation.
Prevent gossip to spread around as they are not even normally true.
Do not accept other employees’ opinions as a reality or as truth, check and confirm your reality.
Bear in mind that your opinion about someone or a team is just a perception, there is a whole world behind a person which you may have no clue about.
If you have positive/negative beliefs or expectations towards an employee or a team, be aware of it and do not let these be transferred into your behaviours or responses, stay neutral and let other people prove if your previous beliefs are real or not.
Follow your gut feeling and inner wisdom.
Sílvia Fontquerni, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Silvia Fontquerni is originally from a town near Barcelona. She holds a postgraduate in Human Resources and is currently studying a Master in Learning and Development to re-direct her professional career to Human Development and Resources. Moreover, she founded Silvia FF Coaching on the side, performing as a psychologist and coach helping individuals to be more confident by reducing self-critic, self-limitations and ego.
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