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“These people aren’t living up to my expectations.”

I’ve heard this phrase many times over the years, usually said with frustration and disappointment. It’s a challenging experience that nearly every leader has gone through in their professional life, but if you’re constantly feeling like your team is letting you down, the problem may not lie solely with them. This issue can happen for a number of reasons, one of them being your expectations. 

Recently I spoke with a newly-promoted Chief Development Officer who inherited a team that's perceived as dysfunctional. His hypothesis is that its leader (his direct report, let’s call him “James”) is disorganized, doesn't know how to delegate, and doesn't check in with his team to make sure they're making progress. He originally wanted to meet with James to talk about this, but after speaking with me, he realized what he really needs to do is build a relationship. The CDO had expectations of James, but hadn’t asked the right questions. For example, how can the CDO show up for James as a leader? What does he want from him? How does James think things have been going? What's been hard? Where does he need help? Once the relationship happened, then they could agree on a course of action going forward. 

The problem with expectations

Renowned coach and author Steve Chandler tells us that we have two choices in life when we relate to other human beings: we can have expectations or we can create agreements. 

At work, most of us lead with expectations. We expect our team to finish a project on time, to live up to quality standards, to be productive, to communicate the way we want them to… And when our team doesn’t meet those expectations, it’s a letdown. It’s easy to take unmet expectations personally, resulting in strained relationships and a stressful work environment. But according to Chandler, it’s having expectations of people at all that is ruining our work relationships. 

Expectations are fear-based, which means they can be toxic, and often create stress and anxiety rather than motivation. Productivity breakdowns can often lead to a morale crisis if they are based on expectation, and the problem isn’t with the employee, it’s with the leadership. When you have expectations related to what another person is going to say or do, and then they don’t do it, that can trigger a number of negative things — judgment, frustration, misunderstanding, anger — that are capable of driving a wedge in the relationship. For the other person who didn’t live up to your expectations, they may feel resentment and anger or experience low self-worth. People do not look forward to living up to expectations; in fact, they often rebel against them. 

So if expectations don’t work, how do leaders get the best out of their teams? Chandler tells us that the secret lies in making agreements. 

Why agreements work 

While people are likely to rebel against expectations, human nature is to keep agreements. The difference lies in the collaboration between two parties. Agreements aren’t one-sided, they’re co-authored, which means that both people have input. When you create expectations, they don’t take into account the needs of the other person. With agreements, you not only can tell the other party what you want, they can then ask you for what they need to accomplish that goal. Agreements also allow you to find out in advance why things aren’t able to occur instead of after a missed deadline or poor performance. Have you ever not had an expectation met only to discover later that your team didn’t have what they needed in order to meet it? Most of us have. When you make an agreement, you are able to nip those difficulties in the bud because you have considered the needs and input of the other party. 

An agreement in action 

To illustrate how agreements can work, let’s consider a common problem: communication clashes. I see this quite a bit in my work; mismatched communication styles can create a slew of problems and will affect morale if not attended to. This can look like a team member who communicates in a way that is perceived as condescending to their peers and junior staff, or a team member who doesn’t share information because they want to be in control of a project. I coached an EVP through this problem recently.  An SVP had sent her an email letting her know they had a long list of things to review and wanted to meet in person.The EVP was upset that the SVP didn’t send her an agenda for the meeting; she wanted to know the “long list of things” they wanted to discuss prior to the meeting, and she hadn’t heard back, even after emailing. The EVP had her own set of expectations when it came to communication, and her SVP wasn’t living up to them. 

If this situation sounds familiar, you’re not alone. I see this happen every day! Thankfully, replacing these expectations with an agreement is an effective way to alleviate these kinds of communication breakdowns. There are three steps you need to take in order to create a successful agreement:

• Open the door for an agreement. To begin, let the person know why an agreement needs to be made. What issue are you having? What do you need from them?
• What do they need to be successful? This is a fact-finding mission of sorts. This allows you to get to the root cause of the problem, and an opportunity for them to tell you what they require. It could be a different timeline, more people, new resources, or any number of things. You’ll base the plan the two of you create on those needs.
• It’s not an agreement unless it works for both of you. Now that both of you are aware of each other’s needs, you can work together to find and agree upon the solution. Creating an agreement is a creative process, and it has to involve both people equally. If there is an imbalance, the agreement won’t be effective. Once you’ve agreed on a solution, you can then hold each other accountable if the agreement isn’t upheld.

If you don’t like a situation, don’t “simmer in the toxic juices of your own expectations.” Instead, go create an agreement that changes it!

How are you choosing to lead? Let’s talk about it. 

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