The Pygmalion Effect: Sooner or Later Leaders Get What They Expect

The concept of linking expectations to performance is called the "Pygmalion Effect". The original Pygmalion was a mythological artist who carved a statue of the ideal woman. His statue was so beautiful and lifelike that he fell in love with his creation. His love was so strong, the goddess Venus came to his rescue and brought the statue to life. 

This concept applies to business. When managers genuinely believe their employees are competent and responsible, they are more likely to treat them in ways that facilitate their ability to succeed. When managers doubt the competence of employees, they are more likely to focus on shortcomings and less likely to give the employee stretch goals. These employees may likely adjust to these low expectations. 

There are specific behaviors that communicate our expectations, whether high or low, to another person. Our beliefs influence these behaviors. It is ultimately the choice of the employee to meet these expectations, but you can influence their decision. As Warren Bennis wrote in his book, On Becoming A Leader, “Employees, more often than not, appear to do what they are expected to do.” 

Managers can communicate their expectations of employees, positive or negative, without realizing it. There are specific behaviors that managers use to do this. Dr. Robert Rosenthal of Harvard University created the Four Factor Theory to categorize the elements of these behaviors. 

• Climate 
Climate describes the non-verbal messages from the manager. Climates can be encouraging or discouraging. 

• Feedback 
Managers give more positive feedback to high expectation employees. Frequent, specific praise achieves better results than random, vague feedback. 

• Input 
Input consists of the amount of information given to an employee. A high expectation employee receives the resources needed to do the job well, while a low expectation employee receives little information on how to improve the work. 

• Output 
Output is the amount of information requested from the employee. The high expectation employees have more opportunities to offer their opinions and receive more assistance in finding solutions to their problems. 

As a manager or supervisor, your aim is to get the best performance from the people who work from you. If you have high expectations of a member of your team, this can reinforce your efforts. On the other hand, if you convey lower expectations of an individual, this can undermine your efforts to improve his or her performance.

Without knowing it, you may show low expectations by delegating less challenging and interesting work. You may pay less attention to team members' performance and give them less support and praise. In return, the team member may feel undervalued and untrusted, and his or her confidence may be undermined. And so your lower expectations, albeit unconsciously communicated, can demotivate the team member, creating the exact opposite effect of the performance improvement that you want.

More than this, the effect of low expectations can create a vicious circle – you expect less, you get less, you lower your expectations and further demotivate, and so on.

The good news is that the opposite is also true. By setting and communicating higher expectations, you can motivate team members and create a virtuous circle leading to continuously improving performance.

To your greater success,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com
Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, branches, distribution centers, food production facilities, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 


Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.