We all need hope. When it comes to our careers, we need hope for security, advancement, and meaningfulness. Yet, many organizations lack the intention to sustain and convey a sense of hope to their employees. To maintain a hopeful organization, leaders must move beyond viewing hope as a nicety and instead understand it as a necessity.
Leaders should consider hope a vital tool in the creation of an effective culture. To nurture this setting, leaders must see hope as an energizing state of purposeful behavior. I believe that employees want to make difference. By participating in meaningful work, employees are allowed the opportunity to make that difference. The hope of making a difference is a powerful individual and organizational motivator.
Hope, in terms of an organization, refers not to emotion-oriented or goal-oriented behavior, but rather to the source or driving force behind purposeful behavior. Research finds that the expectation of a positive outcome is a powerful precursor to action. As such, hope provides the motivation that drives people to act on their goals.
This understanding does not mean that hope and optimism are synonymous, however; hope and optimism are quite different concepts. Optimism is a general expectation that situations will work out independent of specific goals or strategies. Hope, on the other hand, is a state of being that serves as a starting place for discretionary and sustained effort. I’ve found that hope exists when there is both a specific goal and a plausible strategy in place to reach that goal.
Research indicates that people with high levels of hope are more likely to expend that little extra energy and intent, or discretionary effort, to accomplish their goals. Social scientists Yankelovich and Immenwahr define discretionary effort as “the voluntary effort employees make above and beyond what’s required.” Leadership studies experts Kouzes and Posner, in their book Credibility, write that “people with high hope have a greater number of goals across various arenas of life, select more difficult goals and see their goals in a more challenging and positive manner than people with low hope.” They have also found that the majority of people are not filled with high hope, indicating a serious issue for organizations and leaders. Additionally, they have determined that only 40% of people have both the will and the way (or the motivation and the means, two important ingredients for hope) to accomplish their goals.
This lack of hope is directly related to an increase in stress levels. In a study conducted by psychologist Breznitz, a platoon of Israeli soldiers was divided into four groups and each given different instructions before and during a hike. The first group was told that they would march fifty kilometers and were kept informed of their progress along the way, including the remaining distance. This fully-informed group demonstrated low stress and finished first among all four platoons.
Another group of soldiers was only told that they would be participating in a long march. They received no further information during the march. This group of soldiers exhibited high levels of stress and performed the worst out of the four groups.
The third group was given encouraging information at the start of the hike that they would only be marching thirty kilometers. The soldiers were kept informed of their progress but, when they reached the twenty-ninth kilometer, were informed that the goal had changed and that they would need to continue for an additional twenty-one kilometers. This group was in very high spirits before the twenty-ninth kilometer but, upon hearing the news that they must continue for an additional twenty-one kilometers, began to show signs of distress. As they tried to march the additional distance, many found themselves incapable of finishing the hike. The soldiers were suddenly physically and mentally exhausted.
At the beginning of the hike, the fourth group was given discouraging information that the march would be seventy kilometers long, a distance that everyone felt was too far. Soldiers in this group demonstrated depression from the beginning of their endeavor. Just the idea of a seventy-kilometer march discouraged them. About one-third of the group never made it to the tenth kilometer, a distance that they should have been easily able to cover. Those who made it to the twenty-ninth kilometer, however, were told that, instead of seventy kilometers, their total march length would only be fifty kilometers. This information was, unsurprisingly, well received. The relief that they felt due to the reduced goal produced a transformation in attitude and behavior. The soldiers could practically run the remaining distance. After hearing this news, no additional marchers dropped out.
At the twenty-ninth kilometer, soldiers took a number of blood tests to measure a large spectrum of hormonal changes. The same tests were administered again a day later when the soldiers were fully rested in order to obtain a comparable base line. Levels of cortisol and prolactin (chemical substances whose levels rise as stress increases) were, as expected, highest in the group that knew the least about the march and lowest for those soldiers who knew exactly where they were and how much farther they were expected to go.
These results provide evidence of the importance of hope and communication as related to the expenditure of discretionary effort. Members of an organization, whether it be the military or a business, must be both well informed by and confident in their leaders. Communication, transparency, and trustworthiness on the part of leaders seems especially important when the task at hand is one requiring discretionary effort and great demands on endurance and stress tolerance. Because hope is not only related to reaching an end goal but is also the means by which this goal is achieved, a strong relationship between leaders and other members of an organization is essential.
Creating and sustaining hope among employees is thus a crucial leadership responsibility. When employees lack hope in their futures, advancing organizational goals becomes more complex and difficult. The energy by which meaningful work is accomplished is found in hope. Take time as a leader to enter into discussions about hope in your organization.