When an employee fails, or performs poorly, managers typically do not blame themselves. The employee doesn’t understand the work, he isn’t driven to succeed, can’t set priorities, or won’t take direction. Whatever the reason, the problem is assumed to be the employee’s fault—and the employee’s responsibility.

Sometimes, some employees are not up to their assigned tasks and never will be, for lack of knowledge, skill, or simple desire. But sometimes —or often—an employee’s poor performance can be blamed largely on his boss.

“Blamed” can be too strong a word, but it is directionally correct. Bosses—albeit accidentally and usually with the best intentions—are often complicit in an employee’s lack of success. How? By creating and reinforcing a dynamic that essentially sets up perceived underperformers to fail. If the Pygmalion effect describes the dynamic in which an individual lives up to great expectations, the set-up-to-fail syndrome explains the opposite.

The set-up-to-fail syndrome describes a dynamic in which employees perceived to be mediocre or weak performers live down to the low expectations their managers have for them.

The most daunting aspect of the set-up-to-fail syndrome is that it is self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing. It is self-fulfilling because the boss’s actions contribute to the very behavior that is expected from weak performers. It is self-reinforcing because the boss’s low expectations, in being fulfilled by his subordinates, trigger more of the same behavior on his part, which in turn triggers more of the same behavior on the part of subordinates. And on and on, unintentionally, the relationship spirals downward.

The first step is for the boss to become aware of its existence and acknowledge the possibility that he might be part of the problem. The second step requires that the boss initiate a clear, focused intervention.

Summing-up: Reversing the syndrome requires managers to challenge their own assumptions. It also demands that they have the courage to look within themselves for causes and solutions before placing the burden of responsibility where it does not fully belong. Prevention of the syndrome, however, is clearly the best option.