How to Set Clear Expectations For Employees – Dr. Paul White

Whether personal or professional, creating expectations can prove to be beneficial and effective for reaching goals, hitting milestones, and setting high standards. However, as beneficial as setting expectations can be, they can also be detrimental if they’re unrealistic, improperly explained, or even assumed without official clarity. In today’s show, we speak with Dr. Paul White. Paul is a leadership trainer, a renowned psychologist, and a best-selling author with his latest book now available called “The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace”.

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Dr. Paul White goes in-depth about the importance, benefits, and results of applying expectations within the workplace. He first mentions that setting expectations frame how we go through daily life. We inadvertently measure or compare our expectations to the experiences we face on a daily basis and by doing so it has the ability to affect our emotional and mental state. A minor example would be traffic. If one has an expectation that there will be light traffic on a busy day in the city then they are more at risk to be disappointed and frustrated when they find themselves traveling 5 mph, bumper to bumper, in the middle of Atlanta. The same can be applied to other situations within everyday life in that if we cannot properly compare our experiences to our accurate understanding of specific situations then our expectations are prone to be inaccurate themselves.

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As it relates to the workplace, White further discusses that if expectations are not giving to a new employee or staff member then, as a result, they will create their own. The danger of a new staff member creating their own set of expectations within a company is that it creates the potential to be misaligned or can even completely go against what the business leader would want from that new member. White goes on the address questions that cover what business leaders can do to help employees live up to expectations, the consequences of unrealistic expectations, and practices leaders exercise in order to collect feedback.

To learn more about Paul White or his latest book, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, visit his website at www.drpaulwhite.com. 

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