Exploring the Bounds of Pygmalion Effects: Congruence of Implicit Followership Theories Drives and Binds Leader Performance Expectations and Follower Work Engagement

Abstract

The topic of work engagement is moving up on the managerial agenda as it sets the stage for numerous beneficial outcomes for both organizations and their employees. It is clear, however, that not all employees are equally engaged in their job. The current study taps into theory on positive self-fulfilling prophecies induced by leaders’ high expectations of followers (i.e., the Pygmalion effect) and examines their potential to facilitate follower work engagement. By integrating literature on implicit followership theories with the Pygmalion model, we investigate the assumption that leaders’ high expectations are universally perceived as and therefore foster the same desirable results for all employees. We argue and find that the extent to which followers’ work engagement benefits from high leader expectations depends on their implicit followership theory of industry (IFTI; i.e., the general belief that employees are hardworking, productive, and willing to go above and beyond). We also find that when followers hold a high IFTI but feel that their leader does not convey high expectations, their engagement at work suffers. In addition, we examine whether leaders’ IFTI forms the origin of naturally occurring Pygmalion effects. Our results show that a positive IFTI among leaders is especially interpreted as high/positive expectations by followers who also hold a high/positive IFTI. Our study introduces boundary conditions to the Pygmalion-at-work model by revealing the interactive role of leaders’ and followers’ implicit followership theory of industry. We contribute to the advancement of cognitive, follower-centric perspectives on leadership and provide evidence for the importance of schema congruence.

Overall Job Performance, Remote Work Engagement, Living With Children, and Remote Work Productivity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…First, future research might include social variables (e.g., leaders' and colleagues' perception about other employees' performance) in studying the processes that influence the perception of personal productivity in remote work. Not only people's perceptions about themselves, but also about other employees, can play a fundamental role in determining one's productivity in remote work (the Pygmalion or Rosenthal effect; e.g., Veestraeten et al, 2021). Therefore, we think that including the consideration of feedback from others may help in understanding the relationship between people's overall job performance and RW productivity.…”

Being suspicious in the workplace: the role of suspicion and negative views of others in the workplace in the perception of abusive supervision

“…Instead an attribution to performance enhancement motives leads to guilt, less deviant and more organisational citizenship behaviour. Further, recent research into implicit followership theories has suggested that implicit theories can trigger a Pygmalion effect, so that individuals behave more in line with the theories others have of them, and that implicit theories might interact in predicting outcomes (Veestraeten et al ., 2020). Another recent study (Kniffin et al ., 2020) has shown that individuals differentiate between leaders and managers in terms of their implicit theories.…”

Followership: a review of current and emerging research

“…These perceptions that individuals hold are really their prototypes and stereotypes of how they think a leader should behave and the traits they should have (Yukl, 2013, p. 233; Da'as and Zibenberg, 2021, p. 196). Although first introduced by Eden and Leviatan in 1975, the significance of ILTs has been recognised through a considerable body of research since the 1980s (Veestraeten et al. , 2021, p. 140), as it is an area of leadership that continues to receive attention from a number of scholars (Felfe and Petersen, 2007; Popper, 2015; Ehrhart, 2012; Alabdulhadi et al.…”