In the few minutes between hearing my name being announced and walking up to the stage, I remember thinking ‘What if I trip up in front of everyone?”.
My next memory is of flying across the stage, with the audience gasping as they watched me collide with the bemused senior leader holding my award.
Pure coincidence? Hidden fortune-telling capabilities? Or yet another case of the infamous self-fulfilling prophecy?
Coined by American sociologist, Robert K. Merton, ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ refers to the phenomenon of a belief, expectation or prediction becoming true. It’s a well-researched concept that shows the mighty power of our mind over the outcomes we experience.
The ‘placebo effect’ is a classic example of self-fulfilling prophecy in action. Simply because we believe a treatment will have a beneficial effect, it often does. And a significant effect at that – placebo treatments have been shown in clinical trials to, among other things, improve response to antidepressants, reduce irritable bowel symptoms, and provide pain relief.
Our beliefs impact performance beyond the realms of medicine too. Take sports performance as an example. Prior to Sir Roger Bannister making history in 1954, it was widely believed that running a mile in under four-minutes was beyond the realms of human possibility. Yet once that belief had been shattered, the next athlete (John Landy) broke it just 46 days later. Then, just a year later, three runners broke the four-minute barrier in a single race!
Henry Ford neatly summed up this phenomenon in his observation: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t….you’re right.”
Importantly, the self-fulfilling prophecy doesn’t simply apply to beliefs we hold about ourselves but beliefs that others hold about us. It’s known as the Pygmalian Effect. And for leaders, this is where it gets particularly interesting.
In a classic study from the 1960s, Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobsen highlighted how teachers’ expectations impacted student performance. In brief, the researchers randomly selected a group of children and informed the teachers that they were more likely to have an intellectual growth spurt compared to other students. When they returned a while later, they found that the children classified as ‘high potential’ had indeed made improvements compared to their peers. In other words, teachers’ expectations had influenced student performance.
No doubt the teachers would have argued that they treated children equitably in the classroom and yet the evidence suggests otherwise. As Rosenthal and Babad (1985) write, “When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.”
This is as true of the workplace as it is the classroom. In an HBR article summarising decades of research into the topic, J. Sterling Livingstone concludes:
- What managers expect of subordinates and the way they treat them largely determine their performance and career progress.
- A unique characteristic of superior managers is the ability to create high performance expectations that subordinates fulfill.
- Less effective managers fail to develop similar expectations, and as a consequence, the productivity of their subordinates suffers.
- Subordinates, more often than not, appear to do what they believe they are expected to do.
In other words, the belief of leaders about the performance potential of their team members matters. A lot.
As leaders we therefore have a responsibility to examine our expectations of others and explore the impact our beliefs may be having – for good or bad. Here are three pointers that may help:
- You need to truly believe in their potential: Pretending to believe in others won’t cut it. As Livingstone writes, “If managers believe subordinates will perform poorly, it is virtually impossible for them to mask their expectations….”. Instead, leaders must question their existing beliefs and be prepared to ditch labels and expectations that cap potential.
- Ensure your expectations are high but achievable: This is not simply about the power of positive thinking. Team members will only rise to the challenge of higher performance if they consider their manager’s expectations to be realistic. It is therefore a leader’s role to bolster performance confidence by setting challenging yet attainable goals and helping team members recognise ther performance gains.
- Adopt a Growth Mindset: Carol Dweck explains that people with a growth mindset believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. Adopting that belief is good for you as a leader, helping you to continually develop and hone your leadership skills. It also helps you to see the learning potential in your team members. And, finally, it creates a culture in which those around you harness the power of ‘yet’ and continually strive to improve.
In recognising and responding to the Pygmalian Effect, leaders can a significant positive impact on team members. As Livingstone writes, “… subordinates’ self-confidence will grow, their capabilities will develop, and their productivity will be high.”
Remember, you get what you expect.
Esprit Consulting is a boutique leadership and organisational development consultancy that works across industries to cultivate engaging cultures and high performance.
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