Settings expectations is tough. Everyone you deal with has different goals and needs from their job while simultaneously providing different value back to the business. As a manager you have to balance the needs of the business with the needs of your employees.
If you do not set expectations correctly you will quickly find the business and its employees operating from different areas. If everything is not in sync, moving in the same direction it will be hard to be successful.
The most demoralizing thing for an employee is to go through a year believing one thing and then find out something entirely different is true come the end of year. If the business is more successful that employees had believed they will feel taken advantage of. If the other way, they will feel blindsided. They likely would have done the exact same work, the same way but they would have done it with a different mindset.
Psychology is important. We are all people with expectations and desires. We want to know that we are valued and cared for by those we invest our time and effort into. Expectation alignment is the proof that that’s the case.