The Benefits of Self

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Positive Organizational Behavior is the study of how positive psychological capacities can contribute to performance improvement in the working environment (1). Those capacities include self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resiliency and are collectively defined as Psychological Capital (PsyCap). Multiple researches have shown that PsyCap has a positive relationship with many desirable occupational benefits such as performance improvement, company commitment, and job satisfaction; and it is also negatively associated with stress, intention to leave and deviance (2), (3). 

Self-efficacy is a widely researched construct in PsyCap. Prof. Judge had founded more than 800 articles which described, analyzed, measured and applied self-efficacy in many areas such as performance management, stress, leadership, and negotiation (4).

Drawn from the conclusion of many studies, this literature review describes the recognized benefits of self-efficacy in the workplace, and the methods to develop it for both individuals and teams.

A. Definition

Self-efficacy is the perception of how well a person can successfully utilize his or her capabilities or resources to execute a task in a given situation (5). It then influences that person’s choices of action, the amount of effort to be spent and how he or she will overcome difficulties along the way (6). Self-efficacy can be situational, meaning one person can be confident in doing one task but not another, or it can describe the attitude an individual can have when dealing with challenges in general. This review focuses on occupational self-efficacy: the faith of a person in his or her competence to perform in the workplace (7).

B. The Benefits of Self-efficacy at Work

  1. Improve Performance 

In their meta-analysis, Prof. Stajkovic and Prof. Luthans showed that self-efficacy has a strong relation to work-related performance (5). People who possess high self-efficacy think they have more chance of being successful and thus invest more effort into the tasks, and persist longer under adversaries. However, low self-efficacious people do not think that they can get the jobs done, and hence are more likely to withdraw (6).

      2. Enhance Work Engagement

Because self-efficacious people invest more effort in their work, they are more actively involved and become more engaged. Moreover, since self-efficacy brings better job performance, it promotes positive emotions and lets employees have more interests in their work. As a result, self-efficacy enhances employee engagement (8).  The research of Prof. Schaufeli demonstrated that this relationship is long-lasting and could still be valid even three years later (9). Interestingly, this link is reciprocal, as Prof. Llorens showed that work engagement also enhances the self-efficacy beliefs in the workplace (10).

     3. Reduce Stress and Burnout 

According to researchers Lazarus and Folkman, stress happens when people think that their resources to meet the perceived demands are not enough (11). Because self-efficacious employees tend to think that they are able to deal with the demands, they tend to experience less strain symptoms which were caused by job stressors (33). In challenging situations, employees’ self-efficacy beliefs affect the stress level which they might develop via their own perception (12), (6). In such context, people with inefficacious thinking are more likely to suffer from stress while highly self-efficacious individuals can cope better with the situations (13).

Moreover, researchers showed that self-efficacy has a negative association with burnout (14). The study of Prof. Shoji (15) also indicated that self-efficacy acts as the employees’ protective factor against exhaustion, depersonalization, and decreased personal accomplishment, which are the components of burnout (16).

Literature also shows that self-efficacy has many other benefits at work. For instance, it also leads to employee wellbeing and job satisfaction (2) and can help reduce negative emotions such as anger, anxiety and frustration (8). In general, all of the positive results which are gained from this psychological capability contribute either directly or indirectly to the overall improvement in work performance, making self-efficacy an important resource worth developing.

C. How to Promote Self-efficacy At Work 

Fortunately, self-efficacy, just like other psychological components of PsyCap such as optimism, hope, and resilience, is not as rigid as the Big Five personality traits and also not as changeable as emotions. This construct is state-like, malleable and can be enhanced (17). It can be developed through three methods (14):  

  • Enactive mastery experiences: clear evidence of success in overcoming challenges to reach goals. But the achievements must also include a certain degree of setbacks because quick victories can make ones expect quick and easy results and thus become more likely to be discouraged when failing. 
  • Social modeling: observing others succeed at the task ones may participate in. Individuals can obtain not only knowledge, skills and strategies but also motivation and beliefs that they can perform a task well by seeing other people who are similar to them do so. 
  • Social persuasion: receiving encouragement from others. However, the source of persuasion must come from people who possess a high level of credibility. They also must provide the necessary guidance to achieve graduated and attainable successes because pep talks alone are not enough. 

Applying those methods, leaders and managers can practice the following behaviors to develop self-efficacy in their team members (14): 

  • Break down the complexity of the needed skills into subskills which can be easier to learn. 
  • Provide clear instruction for each of those skills, demonstration via videos or from peers and supervisors are also needed.
  • Provide opportunities for employees to apply the skills which they have just learned into practice.
  • Teach employees general rules and strategies to cope with various situations, with examples of their applications.
  • Frequently recognize what they did right and the corresponding achievements of those actions. 
  • Provide constructive feedback on how to improve their skills, but not with destructive criticism because it might lead to lower self-efficacy (32). 
  • Give verbal encouragement to raise employees’ beliefs in their ability to perform. 

Furthermore, Prof. Wang & Prof. Netemeyer, and Prof. Parker found that high job autonomy is also related to self-efficacy (18), (19). Employees who feel they have more control over their work and can carry out their tasks without much guidance gain stronger beliefs in their ability to carry out their responsibilities. Hence, to raise the level of self-efficacy beliefs, managers can involve their members in job crafting programs which include activities such as setting realistic goals, developing strategies to achieve them and sharing their success stories. One intervention with such activities was designed and conducted by Profs. Heuvel, Demerouti and Peeters in a police department (20). It showed an increase in the self-efficacy level and participants felt they have more control of their work environment.  

Moreover, research of Prof. Walumbwa showed that leaders’ PsyCap is strongly associated with employees’ Psycap (21). So, besides carrying out the behaviors and strategies above, leaders of organizations should also be aware of and take efforts to raise their own self-efficacy level (as well as optimism, hope, and resiliency). Their self-efficacy can be enhanced by applying Bandura’s methods, as well as constantly learning about the important aspects of their roles (22) and executing evidence-based solutions which are formed from empirical successes (23).

D. Self-efficacy Remarks for Organizations

Managers and leaders who would like to reap the benefits of self-efficacy should pay attention to many factors which can act as mediators between this psychological capability and its outcomes. One of those mediators is job complexity. Self-efficacy has a significant influence on performance when the tasks have a low level of complexity, but it is harder to measure with highly complex tasks (5). Additionally, researchers Ozyilmaz, Erdogan and Karaeminogullari found the mediating role of trust in the organizations: when that trust level is high, self-efficacy has a stronger relation with performance and job satisfaction (34). But with low faith in the organizations, high self-efficacious employees tend to consider leaving their companies because they think they can thrive at another place. These findings imply that besides raising employees’ self-efficacy, managers and leaders should also break down job complexity and build their trust in the companies. 

Prof. Judge also showed that individual differences such as mental ability, openness, extraversion, and experience also affect both self-efficacy development and work performance (4). Moreover, employees who have different degrees of self-efficacy react differently to organizational initiatives. While low self-efficacious people prefer prescriptive training with apparent processes (24), highly self-efficacious members would like to have more control over their roles and raise new ideas to improve the ways of doing things (25). While self-efficacy can reduce stress (6), highly self-efficacious members can feel frustrated by perceived underload and not being able to utilize their potentials at work (26). From those findings, organizations should be cautious when applying company-wide programs to develop self-efficacy. Before attempting to conduct training or reduce workload, they need to measure employees’ self-efficacy level to understand the current status and take appropriate approaches.

E. Collective Efficacy

Collective efficacy is the belief of a team in their capabilities to perform a specific task. In challenging situations, a group’s efficacy beliefs influence their decision to persist or withdraw, and how much effort should be invested before giving up. It affects the aspiration, commitment and performance of the whole group (6).  Furthermore, collective efficacy is linked to the average job satisfaction level (13). Additionally, in their experiment with nurses, the team of Prof. Zellars showed that high collective efficacy can lead to a lower chance of employees leaving the organizations (27).

Collective efficacy is heavily influenced by individuals’ self-efficacy. As an effect of social modeling, observing the successes or failures of other members can increase or decrease the self-efficacy level of an individual (6). Another predictor of collective efficacy is past performance. Because achievements foster positive beliefs that the team can be successful with their future tasks, Bandura argued that the team’s performance has a significant influence on their collective efficacy (6). And finally, just like self-efficacy, collective efficacy level can be predicted with leadership (28). Leaders can highlight the importance of team cooperation (29), raise awareness of the contribution of all members (30), and appreciate the accomplishments of the team (31) to raise the level of efficacy of the whole group.

Conclusion

In short, self-efficacy is a psychological resource which can lead to desirable work advantages such as increased performance, employee engagement, lower chance of stress and burnout, job satisfaction, and employee wellbeing. Fortunately, self-efficacy is developable, and organizations can promote it via enactive mastery experience, social modeling, and social persuasion. Leaders can also foster self-efficacy in their team members by increasing their own level of self-efficacy and giving employees more job control. They also need to realize the mediators in the links between self-efficacy and work performance to take appropriate initiatives such as breaking down job complexity, build trust in the organizations and to approach different people with different methods. And finally, by raising self-efficacy levels in individual team members and exercising their leadership, leaders can also bring forward collective efficacy, which in turn boost the performance of the organizations. 

 

References 

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