How belief support and accountability help nurse leaders develop people

By Kevin Langkiet, PhD, MSN, RN

A nurse leader looks at two emerging leaders. One is described as high potential and is invited into important meetings, given stretch assignments, introduced to senior leaders, and coached through mistakes. The other is considered not quite ready and continues receiving familiar assignments with limited visibility and less developmental feedback. Months later, the first person appears more confident, capable, and prepared for advancement. The second has shown little growth.

It is tempting to conclude that the leader's original judgment was correct. But another question deserves attention: How much did the leader's expectations help create the result?

That question sits at the center of the Pygmalion effect, the idea that one person's expectations can influence another person's performance. For leaders, the lesson is not that positive thinking magically produces results. The more practical lesson is that expectations change behavior. What leaders believe about people can shape the attention, opportunities, patience, challenges, and feedback those people receive.

What the original research found

Psychologist Robert Rosenthal and elementary school principal Lenore Jacobson conducted the study most closely associated with the Pygmalion effect in 1965 and published their findings in 1968. At an elementary school, teachers were told that a test had identified certain students as likely to experience unusual intellectual growth. In reality, researchers had randomly selected about 20 percent of the students. The meaningful difference was not established ability. It was what the teachers expected.

When the students were tested again, the randomly designated students showed greater gains in measured IQ than the comparison group. The overall difference was statistically significant, but the most pronounced findings occurred among children in the first and second grades. This detail matters because popular retellings often imply that every student labeled a likely bloomer improved dramatically across every measure. The original results were more limited than that summary suggests.

The study became influential because it offered evidence that expectations could become self-fulfilling. Teachers did not need to announce their beliefs to alter the learning environment. Teachers could communicate expectations through ordinary interactions, including warmth, time, challenge, attention, opportunities to respond, and feedback quality.

What later research adds

Decades of subsequent research support a balanced conclusion. Expectancy effects are real, but they are neither automatic nor unlimited. In a major review, Lee Jussim and Kent Harber concluded that classroom self-fulfilling prophecies do occur, yet their effects are usually small. They also noted that many teacher expectations predict performance because the expectations are reasonably accurate, not because the expectations caused the outcome. Occasionally, however, inaccurate expectations can produce larger effects, particularly for people who are vulnerable to being underestimated.

Research in adult and organizational settings also found evidence of expectancy effects. In a randomized study involving military trainees, Dov Eden and Abraham Shani reported that trainees whose instructors had been led to expect stronger performance achieved better results and described more positive leadership behaviors. A later meta-analysis by D. Brian McNatt examined 17 management studies involving 2,874 participants. It found potentially strong effects in some settings, but also substantial variation. Effects were stronger in military and training environments, among men, and when the intervention challenged previously low expectations. The authors cautioned that more research was needed in ongoing civilian workplaces.

The responsible conclusion, therefore, is not that leaders can think people into excellence. It is that expectations can alter the conditions under which people work and develop. Expectations are one influence among many, including preparation, experience, workload, resources, psychological safety, team relationships, and organizational systems.

How expectations become leadership behavior

Expectations matter because they are rarely contained inside a leader's mind. They shape what the leader does. Four channels commonly associated with the expectancy literature translate naturally into leadership practice.

Climate. Leaders tend to build warmer, more encouraging relationships with people they believe can succeed. They listen more closely, communicate confidence, and make it safer to ask questions or admit uncertainty.

Input. People viewed as capable often receive more information, more complex work, greater access to decision-making, and more explanation about how their responsibilities connect to organizational priorities.

Opportunity. Leaders give trusted individuals more chances to contribute, lead discussions, solve problems, present recommendations, and recover from mistakes. Those opportunities become experience, and experience becomes evidence of readiness.

Feedback. When leaders see potential, they may provide more specific coaching, stay engaged longer, and help the person get back on course. When expectations are low, feedback can become brief, vague, delayed, or primarily corrective.

These differences may be subtle, but they accumulate. One employee receives an expanding set of developmental experiences. Another repeatedly receives evidence that the leader does not expect much. Performance may eventually reflect those unequal conditions.

Why this matters in nursing leadership

Nursing is built on relationships, judgment, learning, and increasingly complex coordination. Leaders influence not only what work is assigned but also who is heard, who receives coaching, who is invited into important conversations, and who is considered ready for the next role. A recent systematic review of nursing leadership and staff performance identified autonomy, competence, relationships, support, access to resources, and leadership practices among the factors associated with nurses' motivation and performance. That evidence does not prove a nursing-specific Pygmalion effect, but it supports the broader conclusion that leadership behavior helps shape the environment in which nurses perform.

Consider the emerging charge nurse who hesitates during a difficult staffing decision. A leader who has already decided that the nurse lacks leadership ability may take over, exclude the nurse from future decisions, and cite the original hesitation as proof. A developmental leader responds differently. The leader clarifies the decision framework, asks the nurse to explain their reasoning, provides coaching, and creates another supervised opportunity to make the decision. The standard remains intact, but the person is not defined by one incomplete performance.

The same pattern can affect new managers. A manager who is labeled too operational may be left out of strategic work, then criticized months later for failing to think strategically. If the organization wants strategic leaders, it must give developing leaders access to strategy, explain how executives frame decisions, and provide opportunities to practice strategic thinking with feedback.

High expectations are not unsupported pressure.

The Pygmalion effect can be misused when leaders interpret it as permission to demand more without providing more. Unrealistic workloads, vague goals, insufficient preparation, and chronic resource shortages are not expressions of confidence. They are organizational risks. Telling an overwhelmed leader that you believe in them does not compensate for an unsafe span of control or a lack of essential support.

Developmental expectations are specific, achievable with growth, and accompanied by the tools needed to succeed. Unsupported pressure places responsibility on the individual while ignoring the conditions that influence performance. Effective leaders know the difference.

Belief + Clear Expectations + Support + Accountability = Development

Belief without clarity can feel encouraging but produce little direction. Expectations without support become pressure. Support without accountability can preserve comfort without producing growth. Development occurs when all four are present.

The connection to servant and authentic leadership

Servant leadership is sometimes misunderstood as protecting people from discomfort or lowering expectations to preserve harmony. In reality, a servant leader is committed to the person's growth. That commitment includes listening, removing barriers, providing resources, offering honest feedback, and maintaining standards that honor both the individual and the patients the organization serves.

Authentic leadership requires similar courage. An authentic leader communicates belief without offering false reassurance. The leader can acknowledge present performance, name the gap, and still express confidence in the person's capacity to improve. The message becomes: I will be honest about what is needed, I will not define you by this moment, and I will remain engaged as you develop.

This is especially important when performance concerns emerge. A developmental leader does not ignore the concern, nor immediately conclude that the person is incapable. The leader explores contributing causes, identifies what is working, clarifies the standard, jointly develops a support plan, and evaluates progress. Accountability and compassion remain partners.

Six ways leaders can put the research into practice

1. Examine where opportunity is going. Review who receives stretch assignments, committee roles, presentations, mentoring, acting leadership responsibilities, and access to senior leaders. Repeatedly selecting the same people may reflect confidence, but it also concentrates development.

2. Communicate belief and the standard together. Tell people what you believe they can accomplish, what success requires, and why the responsibility matters. Avoid vague encouragement that leaves the individual unsure about expectations.

3. Make the stretch developmental rather than punitive. Assign work that extends the person's capability while providing the authority, information, time, and coaching required to learn. A stretch assignment should build readiness, not serve as an unsupported test.

4. Coach specifically and consistently. Recognize observable progress. Describe what improved, why it mattered, and what should happen next. When correction is required, focus on the behavior, decision, or result rather than turning one event into a judgment about the person's identity.

5. Create another opportunity after a setback. Patient safety and serious conduct issues require appropriate action, but many developmental mistakes should lead to reflection, preparation, and another supervised attempt. People cannot demonstrate growth if you permanently remove them from the situations where they must show it.

6. Reassess your conclusions. Ask what evidence supports your judgment, what evidence challenges it, and whether bias may be influencing who you consider capable. Use transparent criteria and multiple observations rather than relying on reputation, familiarity, presentation confidence, or one past event.

The expectation every developing leader deserves

Leaders do not control another person's potential, effort, or choices. They do control whether their behavior expands or restricts the conditions for growth. Every assignment, coaching conversation, invitation, and second chance communicates something about what the leader believes is possible.

The most useful lesson from the Pygmalion research, then, is not simply to expect more. It is to examine what our expectations cause us to provide. Do we offer the same quality of feedback to the person we doubt? Do we give emerging leaders enough access to learn? Do we mistake unfamiliarity, quietness, or one difficult moment for limited potential? Do we hold high standards while remaining present enough to help people meet them?

People will not always become what a leader hopes they will become. But they should not remain underdeveloped because a leader quietly decided, too early, what they could never become. Strong leaders see potential responsibly. They pair belief with evidence, opportunity with preparation, support with accountability, and confidence with honest evaluation.

That is not wishful thinking. It is developmental leadership.

Reflection questions

• Who on my team receives the greatest share of my time, patience, and developmental attention?
• Whom might I be unintentionally protecting from the very opportunities needed for growth?
• Are my expectations based on current evidence, past reputation, familiarity, or unexamined bias?
• When I ask someone to stretch, have I also provided clarity, authority, resources, and coaching?
• How will I know whether my leadership is expanding another person's capability?

References

Alsadaan, N., et al. (2023). Impact of nurse leaders' behaviors on nursing staff performance: A systematic review of literature. Inquiry, 60. https://doi.org/10.1177/00469580231178528

Eden, D., & Shani, A. B. (1982). Pygmalion goes to boot camp: Expectancy, leadership, and trainee performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67(2), 194-199. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.67.2.194

Jussim, L., & Harber, K. D. (2005). Teacher expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies: Knowns and unknowns, resolved and unresolved controversies. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9(2), 131-155. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0902_3

McNatt, D. B. (2000). Ancient Pygmalion joins contemporary management: A meta-analysis of the result. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(2), 314-322. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.85.2.314 Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom. The Urban Review, 3, 16-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02322211