Why high expectations are good for business

Leaders are put in place to guide their organizations to success. The traits and skills you use to inspire and motivate your team are the biggest contributors to achieving that goal. Sure, you can identify new opportunities to expand your market share, make strategic investments to improve performance and so on. But, your people are who put those plans into action. You need their buy in and commitment.

As you know, I’m a big advocate of servant leadership. That means putting your people first and empowering them to do and be their best. They, in turn, feel ownership over their responsibilities and valued for their contributions.

So how do we help our employees be their best? You can start by setting high expectations. In a recent article on Entrepreneur, business guru Richard Koch argues that expectations become self-fulling. When you expect a lot out of your organization and employees – and have the leadership traits that motivate them in positive ways – they’ll strive to meet those expectations.

Here are the five components Koch identified in successful businesspeople:

 

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