Self Fulfilling Prophecy Theory

There are many ways to influence the employee’s performance as a manager and understanding a self-fulfilling prophecy theory will play a very important role in influencing the employee’s performance. According to an article called Self-fulfilling Prophecy - How Our Perceptions Can Influence Reality, “A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that causes itself to come true due to the simple fact that the prediction was made. This happens because our beliefs influence our actions.” (Self-fulfilling prophecy) As a result, the self-fulfilling prophecy suggests that a manager’s conscious or unconscious behaviour will affect positively or negatively on the employee’s behaviour in the work place. Through setting up the clear and unbiased expectation, understanding the manager’s behaviour towards the employee created by the manager’s expectations, and providing feedback on employee’s progress will help the managers enhance their employee’s performance.

First, in order to enhance an employee’s performance, a manager should set a realistic and reasonable expectation on employee’s performance. (Better management by perception) A manager can start forming the expectation based on the employee’s job descriptions or performance measures in order to achieve fair, consistent and realistic goals on employee’s performance.

By understanding the self-fulfilling prophecy process, the managers can definitely lead their employees in the positive manner which will influence their motivation and interest. Eventually, this will help the team to achieve the goals and furthermore, the organizational goal. I believe one team one goal slogan comes from this. One manager cannot achieve the goal by himself. It is very important to recruit its supervisor to be on the same page and support the manager’s decision to help all the employees to achieve the same