The one foolproof way managers can help their team achieve more

"It's been 70 years since Douglas McGregor sketched a management theory at MIT Sloan that leaders still ignore-and their teams pay the price. Known as Theory X and Theory Y, McGregor's framework built on Abraham Maslow's work on employee self-actualization, and it quickly became one of the foundational texts of modern management thinking. In McGregor's theory, leaders fall into two camps."

"The kicker is that both kinds of managers usually get exactly the employees they expect, no matter who they originally hired. What McGregor was tapping into was the fact that certain beliefs have an uncanny way of turning into real, measurable effects on human behavior. Whether it's placebo studies in medicine or examining how teachers' expectations impact classroom performance, the science is unambiguous about how simple expectations can have far-reaching effects."

Theory X managers assume employees are inherently lazy, require constant supervision, and prefer to coast, while Theory Y managers view employees as self-motivated, responsible, and capable of growth when provided the right environment. Managerial beliefs create feedback loops that shape behavior and performance. Expectation effects appear across domains, from placebo responses in medicine to classroom outcomes. Rosenthal and Jacobson's 1968 experiment showed that teachers told certain students were "late bloomers" treated them with more encouragement, patience, and challenging material, and those students subsequently outperformed peers. Leaders' expectations therefore materially influence how people are treated and how they perform.

Read at Fast Company