By Tobias Keller
Did you ever wonder why some employees seem extremely insecure, pessimistic, and hopeless regarding their work tasks or projects? As their supervisor you may have a major impact on this.
According to psychologists, employees’ work performance is influenced by their Positive Psychological Capital (PsyCap). High PsyCap corresponds to high levels of confidence, hope, optimism, and resilience. The higher the PsyCap the more optimistic employees are in getting their things done. In an experimental study conducted by James Avey, Bruce Avolio and Fred Luthans (2011) engineers with a high PsyCap performed better than their less positive colleagues. In their study, engineers in an aviation company had to deal with practical issues of the company. The issue of one group of engineers was very low in complexity. The other group of engineers was confronted with a highly complex problem. When the tasks were assigned to them, the engineers also read brief memos from a directors meeting. In these memos the supervisors of the engineers (i.e., the program directors)
- raised concerns about the successful problem solving of their subordinates, e.g. “[…] I’m just not sure this situation will end up the way we all hope …” (Avolio et al 2011, p. 287); or
- expressed high confidence in the competencies of their engineers, e.g. “The team is world class in terms of its performance […] I’m totally confident in them, they always come up with the solution we need” (Avolio et al. 2011, p. 286).
Before making contributions to problem solving the engineers had to answer questions about their confidence, hope, resilience, and optimism in solving the given problem. Afterwards, every engineer made written contributions for solving the given problem. Each contribution was assessed on its quality and quantity by independent scientists.
As expected, the engineers‘ PsyCap was positively related to their performance in solving the practical issues. Engineers with low PsyCap performed more poorly than engineers with high PsyCap. The latter engineers not only worked out more contributions to problem solving, but their contributions were also more innovative than those of the engineers with lower PsyCap. Although engineers confronted with complex issues expressed a lower positive psychological capital than their colleagues with less complex issues, leaders‘ positivity significantly influenced the PsyCap of their subordinates. That is, the positive psychological capital of those engineers whose supervisors mentioned confidence, hope, and optimism was higher than that of engineers whose supervisors were less confident, hopeful, and optimistic.
In line with the results of the study by Avolio et al., leaders‘ positivity seems to infect followers‘ positivity, i.e. their PsyCap. The latter is positively related to followers‘ performance. This also means that leaders who express low positivity, i.e. have a rather pessimistic belief in their followers competencies, will reduce their followers’ PsyCap. Leaders‘ positivity can lead to a Self-fulfilling-prophecy, also known as the Pygmalion-effect, (cf. Rosenthal/Jacobson 1968): The way a leader thinks about his or her followers will influence his or her interaction with the followers and, thus, leads to a confirmation of the leaders‘ assumptions. However, in the study by Avolio et al. the PsyCap of the subordinates was influenced merely by a brief written information about leaders‘ positivity. Thus, the study shows how influential the word of leaders about their followers is, and how closely related a positive mindset of a superior is to the positive psychological capital of their subordinates and their performance.
Digging Deeper:
Avey, J./Avolio, B.J./Luthans, F. (2011): Experimentally analyzing the impact of leader positivity on follower positivity and performance. In: The Leadership Quarterly, 22(2), pp. 282 – 294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.02.004
Rosenthal, R./Jacobson, L. (1968): Pygmalion in the Classroom. In: The Urban Review, September, pp. 16 – 20. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02322211
About the author
Tobias Keller is a professor for Business Administration at the EBZ Business School, University of Applied Sciences in Bochum (Germany). He has practical experiences in management consultancy and organizational development. His main topics in research and consultancy cover Organizational Behavior, Management and Leadership. Please contact via t.keller@ebz-bs.de or at LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/prof-dr-tobias-keller-16631328.
