Why should a manager treat their staff optimistically?

People tend to meet expectations, their own, and those of the people who they have a relationship with.

I assume most people have encountered, even if 2nd hand, "Pygmalion In The Classroom" - the 1968 study of kids and teachers expectations.

I see no reason why the same dynamic does not work in business.



Indeed I've worked in companies where some people obviously under-perform, indeed sometimes where the whole department under performs, and yet that performance fulfils the management expectation since they have a pessimistic set of expectations about the capabilities of the department.

I know from experience that I tend to work best when I, and my management, view my skills and abilities with optimism and where we expect, and aim for, the most favourable outcome.

As a manager I try to treat my staff optimistically.

This does not mean that we should stop analysing risk. We still have to 'manage', and we need to 'track' so that we know that we continue to head towards the most favourable outcome.

I find it very depressing to work in an environment where 'management' have low expectations for the staff - the basic cycle that I observe in those situations:

• management have low expectations of workforce ->


• workforce put on low 'risk' or low 'challenge' work ->


• workforce left alone to "do a bad job, or not, it doesn't matter, maybe they will surprise us" ->


• workforce get no positive feedback ->


• workforce do the least 'good' work they think they can get away with ->


• no feedback on that work so the next time round they do less quality work ->


• if the company gets lucky then workforce and management part company 'doesn't matter, they weren't very good anyway' ->


• staff then hopefully go on to an environment where they can produce their best.

If we label the workforce as 'under performing' then we should look towards systemic reasons for this and do what we can to change the system, and that includes our behaviour as elements of that system.

So the tenets I try to hold myself to:

• View the capabilities of your workforce with optimism


• Don't give up on them


• Challenge them


• Mentor them until they have the skills to meet the challenge


• At some point you may have to mutually agree that it the relationship has not worked out - make that decision and find an amicable resolution.