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BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT


SUCCESS AND


Many employers believe there is a link between an employee’s self esteem and their performance or success in the workplace. Trainer and Motivational Speaker Frank Newberry explores the issue.


For the purposes of this article I would like to define ‘self esteem’ as how you regard yourself most of the time. If you have HIGH self esteem you think well of yourself. you feel that you are an OK person. If you have LOW self esteem you do not think that you are that special. You might even believe that you are not an OK person.


For many years I have heard it said that if a person has good self esteem they do better work than people who have poor self esteem. For some time the prevailing view has been that ‘a happy worker is a good worker’ and that supervisors should therefore keep their staff happy. It has been suggested that supervisors could do this in a cost-effective way by giving praise and recognition to people on a regular basis.


THERE IS NO PROVEN LINK BETWEEN SELF ESTEEM AND WORK PERFORMANCE


More recent scientific research suggests that whilst there are benefits to having good self esteem levels in the work team there are also drawbacks which should also be considered.


The research results are conclusive about one important aspect. There is no proven link between self esteem and the performance of typical work tasks. People can do a reasonable job, even a great day’s work, without feeling good about themselves.


Importantly an employee with high self esteem does not necessarily perform straightforward work tasks any better just because they feel good about themselves.


Why then has it become popular to believe that self esteem equals success at work? Well, it would now seem that the people who popularised the notion that a happy worker is a good worker were expressing an opinion, albeit an expert opinion. They saw the maintenance of high levels of self esteem in work teams as a positive way forward for managers and decision makers. However, their claim was made without any specific evidence to back it up.


SELF ESTEEM A NICE IDEA BUT IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE


GOOD SELF ESTEEM CAN HELP IF THE EMPLOYEE HAS TO BE PERSISTENT AFTER FAILURE


In their defence, there are some (related) aspects of work performance that good self esteem does enhance, For example good self esteem can help if a job requires a person:


1 To have persistence after failure; 2 To be confident enough to speak up and if necessary criticise their work group’s approach;


3 To be able to take initiatives, and 4 To come across as a happy person e.g. when dealing with customers


However, if a person has to do fairly straightforward tasks quickly and accurately their self esteem level does not seem to make any difference at all to that speed and accuracy. This means that a miserable so-and-so can do the work just as well as the happiest member of the work team!


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