Addressing Recurring Performance Issues as a Manager.

David Buirs - Leadership Coach & Management Trainer

Why won’t he just do it?

David Buirs is a leadership coach in Amsterdam for new managers with 0 to 4 years of experience. This article explains how to address recurring performance issues by first examining your own role before drawing conclusions about the employee. It covers the Golem effect, the right questions to ask as a manager, and when a Performance Improvement Plan is a fair and honest step.

There is someone on your team who has not been delivering for a while.

You have talked about it. Maybe twice. Things improve briefly, then slide back. The same mistakes. The same patterns. The same conversation on repeat.

At some point, the thought arrives: why won’t he just do it?

That feeling is understandable. And it is also exactly the moment things can go wrong.

The Golem effect: how your frustration makes the problem worse

In psychology, the Pygmalion effect describes how high expectations improve performance. Researchers Rosenthal and Jacobson demonstrated this in 1968. Teachers who believed certain students were high-potential saw those students genuinely improve, with no objective difference between them and their peers.

The Golem effect is the opposite. Low expectations lead to lower performance. Not because the person lacks motivation. But because your attitude shapes their behavior.

You ask fewer questions. You explain less. You check in with a slight impatience. You give more critical feedback and less encouragement. Without realizing it, you are sending a signal: I no longer believe you can do this.

And the other person feels it. People are finely tuned to how others perceive them.

The result: the employee pulls back. Takes less initiative. Makes more mistakes. And you see that as confirmation that you were right all along.

Frustration reinforces itself. A performance problem grows while you believe you are addressing it.

The question most managers skip

Before you ask anything of the employee, there is a different question to answer first.

What role have I played in this?

That is not self-blame. It is the most practical question you can ask. Because if you have contributed to the problem and do not address that, nothing changes.

Work through it honestly:

Have I clearly explained what I expect? Not in broad strokes, but concretely. What does success look like? When is something good enough?

Has this person received the right training and resources to actually do this job? Or am I assuming they already know?

Have I given regular, constructive feedback? Or do I only speak up when something goes wrong?

Have I asked how they see their own work? Do they even know I consider this a problem?

Have I asked what they think the reason is? They might see something you do not.

This is not doubt. It is just good management. You cannot change anything in someone else while there are still variables on your side you have not examined.

Curiosity as a tool

The trap of frustration is that you start explaining. You already have a theory. He does not care enough. She is not motivated. He is not cut out for this.

Curiosity asks something different. What is going on for this person? What makes this difficult? What do they need that they currently do not have?

That conversation is uncomfortable to start, especially when frustration has been building for weeks. It feels like walking in the wrong direction.

But it is exactly the conversation that matters. Not to let someone off the hook. But to understand what is actually happening.

Sometimes something personal is going on. Sometimes there is ambiguity you have allowed to persist. Sometimes the person has felt like they are failing for months and does not know how to say it.

And sometimes you discover that the intention is there, but the skill is not. That is very different from unwillingness. And it calls for a completely different response.

When curiosity is not enough

Say you have done all of this. You have clarified expectations. You have offered training. You have had the conversations. You have asked what they need.

And nothing changes.

Then there is an honest question you have to ask: does this person meet the minimum standard for this role?

That is not an attack. It is a professional reality. Every role has a floor. Below that floor, the team does not function, colleagues carry extra weight, and results are missed.

If someone is consistently below that floor, and you have genuinely tried, there is a next step.

The Performance Improvement Plan: a last resort, not a first reaction

A Performance Improvement Plan, or PIP, is a formal process. You document in writing what the expectations are, what the current situation is, and which specific goals need to be reached within a set timeframe. Usually three to six months.

The plan also describes what support you will provide. And what happens if the goals are not met.

A PIP is not a punishment and it is not a goodbye. It is a clearly structured opportunity. With agreed milestones, support, and consequences.

But it only works if the process is honest. If the expectations are realistic. If the support you commit to is real. And if you are using it to give someone a genuine chance, not to build a paper trail for dismissal.

Use a PIP only after months of conversations, feedback, and concrete attempts to improve the situation. Not as a first response to a problem you have not yet fully understood.

Addressing recurring performance issues as a manager starts with yourself. Not because you are always at fault, but because you are the only variable you can directly change.

That takes honesty. And sometimes a conversation you have been putting off.

If you want to work on how you handle situations like this, you can read more about business coaching for leaders or explore what a structured leadership track for your organization could look like. Interested or curious? Let’s chat. Plan your free introduction here. Zero obligation.

The Power of Your Expectations

How much do you really believe in your team’s potential?

The expectations you set for them could be the difference between success and stagnation.

The Pygmalion Effect shows us that when you expect your team to succeed, they’re more likely to do so.

But the Golem Effect tells us the opposite:
If you expect little, your team may underperform—whether you intend that or not.

I wish I knew about these effects a few years ago, as they’re very real.

Your beliefs can either limit or amplify your team’s growth.

High expectations encourage initiative, creativity, and responsibility.
Low expectations breed hesitation and a lack of engagement.

To maximize your team’s potential, focus on the power of your belief in them.

Challenge yourself:
Are you empowering your team through trust and high expectations?
Or are you holding them back with doubt?

🔺Are you looking for an incompany management training? I’d love to discuss this further!

How To Manage Underperformers

Leiderschapscoach Amsterdam | David Buirs

How to Manage Underperformers (Without Making It Worse)

David Buirs is a leadership and executive coach based in Amsterdam. This article explores how to manage underperforming team members using insights from psychology and neuroscience, including the Golem effect, the Pygmalion effect, and the role of stress in performance. It offers a practical approach built on small steps and positive reinforcement.

Every team has someone who’s falling behind. If yours doesn’t, your targets are probably too easy.

That sounds blunt. But statistically, it’s simply how performance works. In any group of people, you’ll find a natural spread. Roughly 10 to 20 percent will consistently exceed expectations. The majority will perform around the average. And a similar percentage will struggle. Performance in any team follows a normal distribution. It’s the natural outcome of putting different people with different strengths into complex environments.

The real question is what you do with it.

The Golem Effect: How Your Expectations Make It Worse

There’s a well-documented phenomenon in psychology called the Golem effect. When a manager expects someone to underperform, that expectation gets communicated. Not always in words. Sometimes through tone. Through the projects you assign. Through how much autonomy you give. Through how often you check in.

The person on the receiving end picks up on all of it. And something predictable happens: they start performing in line with your low expectations. They disengage. They stop taking initiative. They become the underperformer you assumed they were.

The Golem effect was first described by Robert Rosenthal, the same psychologist who discovered its opposite: the Pygmalion effect. When managers hold high expectations and communicate genuine belief in someone’s ability, performance goes up. People rise to meet what’s expected of them.

This means that before you address someone’s underperformance, you need to honestly examine your own assumptions. Are you managing this person as someone who’s struggling temporarily? Or have you already written them off?

What Happens in the Brain When Stress Gets Too High

Here’s something that often gets overlooked. Many underperformers aren’t lacking motivation or ability. They’re overwhelmed.

When pressure crosses a certain threshold, something happens in the brain that Daniel Goleman calls an amygdala hijack. The amygdala, the brain’s threat detection system, takes over from the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is where you do your best thinking. Planning, reasoning, problem-solving. All of that goes offline.

What remains is fight, flight, or freeze. In a work context, that looks like someone who shuts down in meetings. Who avoids difficult tasks. Who seems to be reading the same email over and over without actually processing it. Who says yes to everything but delivers on nothing.

If you respond to this by increasing the pressure, by adding more check-ins, tighter deadlines, sharper feedback, you’re feeding the cycle. The amygdala stays activated. The prefrontal cortex stays offline. Performance drops further.

Calm Before Clarity

If someone has the motivation to improve but isn’t there yet, the most effective thing you can do is lower the temperature first.

Your standards stay the same. What changes is the conditions you create so their brain can actually function again. A conversation that starts with “I see you’re struggling, and I want to help you find a way through this” lands very differently than one that starts with a list of everything that’s going wrong.

Once there’s enough safety to think clearly, you can start working on the actual performance. And the approach that works best is surprisingly simple.

Small Steps, Positive Reinforcement

Break the work down into small, measurable goals. Specific, achievable targets that can be reviewed weekly.

When someone has lost confidence in their own ability, they need early wins. Small proof that they can still do this. Every time they hit a target, acknowledge it. Positive reinforcement rewires the brain’s reward system and rebuilds the neural pathways for motivation. The neuroscience on this is clear.

As their confidence returns, you can gradually increase the complexity. The key word is gradually. You’re rebuilding someone’s relationship with their own competence. That takes time.

When It Doesn’t Work

Sometimes, despite everything, it doesn’t work. The motivation isn’t there. The role is genuinely wrong for the person. The gap between what’s needed and what’s being delivered is too wide.

In those cases, the kindest thing you can do is be honest. A clear, respectful conversation about fit is more humane than months of low expectations, growing resentment, and a Golem effect that damages both of you.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Managing underperformers is one of the most common themes in leadership coaching. And one of the most misunderstood. Most managers either avoid the conversation entirely or handle it in a way that triggers exactly the stress response that makes things worse.

For organisations where underperformance is a pattern across multiple teams, management training offers a structural approach to raise the bar. And if you’re a senior leader navigating this at a strategic level, executive coaching provides the space to think through how you shape performance culture from the top.

Curious how this could work for your situation? Plan your free introduction here. No pressure. Just an honest conversation.