G. Bear shaw's "My Fair Lady" in which Professor Henry Higgins helps Eliza Doolittle, a flower peddler, become queen of the ball is the inspiration for the famous "Pygmalion effect" or "self fulfilling prophecy" in our field. This theory regarding a mentor, teacher or manager motivating a disinterested child was based on Robert Rosenthal's studies. One study was of teachers motivating their elementary school students (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1992). In this study, teachers were told erroneously that particular pupils were "intellectual bloomers". Later, these students showed higher performance. The explanation was that teachers were unconsciously providing more attention, learning opportunities and altruistic care to what they thought were their more "talented" charges. In this way, Rosenthal assumed teachers "nonverbally" communicated their higher expectations to their talented students. Rosenthal acknowledged that he was frustrated by his ability to demonstrate in controlled experiments that teacher expectations predict student performance and not know what's really motivating them. Dov Eden (1990) expressed similar frustration with his consistent findings that manager's expectations predict employee performance. Both investigators could not accept the simple explanation that an authority figure is able to subtly communicate expectations for highly motivated performance and thereby produce it. Clearly, something very powerful is driving these results. But, what could it be?
According to Professor G. Bear Graen, his research suggests a reasonable answer for this "holy grail" in his theory of leadership-motivated excellence (Graen, 2014). Graen's investigations into business firms consistently showed that those employees who negotiated a "unique strategic alliance" (USA) with their immediate manager work in a far more engaging, productive and fun world than those who do not. This USA is between manager and employee, or teacher and student, or mentor and mentee. It is shown to be based on mutual respect of competence and trust in intention.
Graen has developed protocols to prepare teachers, managers and their people to foster USAs. Yes, it involves high expectations, but these are not drivers. Expectations are GPSs for directions of excellence. The primary drivers are mutual respect, trust and mutual accepting nods. The protocols need to be tailored for the particular pair involved. Some questions to be answered involve how this protocol can be used for distant learning and distant team performance. (Grace & Graen, 2014).
What do you think?
George Graen
jag
Reference
Eden, Dov, (1990). Pygmalion in Management. D. C. Health: Lexington, MA.
Grace, M., & Graen, G. B. (2014). Millennial: Designing the Future. LMX leadership: The series Vol IX, Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Graen, G. Bear (2014). Research Review of Executive Development of Leadership (ED-L). Oxford University Press: Oxford, G. B.
Rosenthal, Robert & Jacobson, Lenore (1992). Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectations and Pupil's Intellectual Development. Irvington Publishers: New York.