Living To Expectations

You can either live up to expectations or live down to expectations. The same is true for your employees. You, as a supervisor, can lead either by positive reinforcement or by negative reinforcement; it’s your choice.

A workforce, family, spouse, children, church, or team can be greatly influenced by the tone set by the leader. If you treat others with a measure of depreciation or low expectation, you may be rewarded for your vision. If you shoot for the bottom rung of the ladder, you will have your less than stellar employees meet that expectation. Your excellent employees may find it’s time to look for a position in another department or company. It’s such a colossal drag to be intelligent, innovative, and eager and be forced to wallow in a stagnant pool of mediocrity.

It does not mean you should set goals that are higher than anyone can possibly achieve. Goals need to be achievable. They should be appropriate for the experience, the age, and the situation.
Inspiration and positive expectations must be sincere to be effective. Manipulating the emotions of your employees will guarantee a slow down in productivity. The hard part of motivation is if you, as the supervisor and leader, have not bought into the goal. It is very hard to lead a team over the meadow when you always think there is a cliff to jump off behind the trees.

Front line supervisors may not know or understand the entire vision for a large corporation. This is where staying committed to the goal will be most difficult for you. To make it easier to understand, set the goals you and your employees can understand. These may be tangible goals that reflect your department's work. An example:

You have been asked to have your department increase production 25% by year end. You know it is possible but you don’t see any reason to increase your production when the rest of the company doesn’t seem to be increasing their output. What good will it do to have your people bust their hide when it will just sit in some warehouse waiting for the other departments to catch up on their parts and finishing? This would be the thought of a supervisor who hasn’t bought into a vision (alas, an unknown vision). For some reason, you do not trust those running your company enough to think positively. Your leaders may want to experiment with one department to see if the entire company can step up to expansion. They may want to do this gradually in an effort to not invest money if it can’t be accomplished. They would not explain this to lower management because it involves speculation and that involves money. This is just one typical example of not knowing the big picture. While this practice allows upper management to make wise choices, it requires middle management to have faith.

If you cannot muster enough faith in your company’s leadership, you should look for work elsewhere. You are not giving your best and you will be dragging your employees down to your level. If you do have the kind of faith that allows you to lead with optimism, your employees will catch that mood. Granted, there may be a few who do not want to be enthusiastic but that’s another issue.

The most dynamic leaders inspire others to invent, to conquer, to surpass goals, and to be examples themselves. It all starts with you, the supervisor. Job 32:8 "But there is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding."