Do Your Employees Know How They Measure Up?

“But I assumed you would.”

“Why should I have to spell that out?”

Sound familiar? Unarticulated expectations are a sign of ineffective leadership—and they do nothing but frustrate everyone.

Great leaders expect excellence and hold people accountable. My MBA students make it perfectly clear: They want a “rubric” on how they’ll be graded. It’s an intensive practice to clearly define my expectations up front and check for understanding. Sure, the real world is messier, but there’s something to be said for defining expectations clearly on both sides of the relationship equation. In the end, clear understanding improves performance.

Here are four quick steps to setting clear expectations at your agency:

1. Figure out what you want. If you’re not clear on what you want, I guarantee you won’t be able to communicate it. I had one VP who could never articulate just what he wanted in the presentations we were creating. He just “knew it when he saw it.” The lack of clear expectations always resulted in rounds and rounds of frustrating iterations that wasted everyone’s time—and weakened respect along the way.
2. Engage in conversation. Be clear about what you want, but also listen carefully to concerns. Better to identify expectation disconnects as early in the game as possible.
3. Write it down. In some circumstances, it’s useful to write down agreed-upon expectations. This works one-on-one and with teams. The process of writing down expectations often leads to further clarity and serves as an objective reminder as expectation violations arise.
4. Check in. From time to time, it’s useful to check in. Use the four-quadrant method to guide the conversation (see sidebar). You can approach this one-on-one or as a team exercise. Here’s how:

• Ask each employee to complete the matrix, jotting down areas where expectations are being met and where they are not.
• Discuss areas of agreement and areas of concern. Start by appreciating the positive: What do you expect that you do receive? What don’t you expect that you don’t receive? Then, recognize problem areas: What do you receive that you don’t expect? Expect that you don’t receive?
• Identify specific actions that would enable you to work more effectively together.

Karin Hurt, CEO of Let’s Grow Leaders, is a keynote speaker, leadership consultant and author of “Overcoming an Imperfect Boss.”