It’s Friday the thirteenth. Do you know where your black cat is?

According to Wikipedia ”a superstition is the irrational belief that future events are influenced by specific behaviors, without having a causal relationship.”

When I read the Wikipedia definition, it immediately conjured up thoughts of performance management and the irrational belief some managers have about how to impact the future behavior of employees without really understanding their own role in the relationship.

Too often managers lead through intimidation, putting an unreasonable fear  into their staff because they don’t believe in the notion that most people want to do their jobs well and don’t need commands, threats or ultimatums. Unfortunately, the result is all too often the opposite of the intention.

As I mentioned in a previous blog the primary reason employees stay with a company is because of their relationship with their boss, which means - among other things - someone who motivates and inspires.

However, too many supervisors don’t realize the power they wield or how to manage it. They don’t understand the cause and effect or the influence they can have over their team’s behaviors.

A line that hit home for me came from an article by Michael Beck, President of Exceptional Leadership, Inc. He wrote “The essence of exceptional leadership is the ability to inspire the best effort in others.”

It should not be unexpected or come as a surprise. Managing to exceptional performance should be the intended result of a carefully laid-out plan. So when it comes to performance management, the belief that future events can be influenced by specific behaviors is not at all irrational.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 10:30 am and is filed under Leadership, Performance Management. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.