Nothing destroys leadership skills like sitting across from someone; your heart races and sweat begins to form in your palms. You hope they don’t smell your fear, but you just want out of this situation. In a panic, you deploy the most convenient technique in your arsenal; the compliment sandwich.
1. Compliments Associated With Criticism
In the 1890’s Russian Psychologist Ivan Pavlov found that canines can associate a sound with an upcoming meal; simply put, this is classical conditioning. If dogs make this association to seemingly unrelated stimuli, your educated professional employees can quickly figure out that when you compliment, a critique is not far behind. This leads to confusion for all parties involved, inadvertently putting the employee in defensive mode, and as a leader, you lose the initiative.
2. Praise Appears Fake
Praise and encouragement are critical development tools for leaders. It offers leaders the opportunity to reinforce a particular behavior and, most importantly, show appreciation for their teammates’ efforts. When used as part of the compliment sandwich, employees are quick to realize that any praise given was merely an attempt to soften their defenses and was most likely a disingenuous statement.
Therefore, the problematic issue has been inadequately addressed, and you have created an environment where praise and encouragement can’t even be trusted.
3. Constructive Criticism Lost in Translation
When an employee is called to a meeting with their supervisor, this can be an anxiety-inducing event. When opening a counseling session with heaps of praise and discussing an employee’s strengths or accomplishments, the nervous employee quickly focuses on the positive words at the beginning and end of the conversation.
This natural tendency aids in relieving the stress of the interaction. But, with your employee’s attention orbiting the praise you just offered, any impact of your attempt to address a problematic issue has gone out the window.
4. A Leader Lacking Confidence
Many people avoid confrontation, especially in the workplace. But leaders don’t get this luxury. On the contrary, often, the best method of handling a difficult issue is to address it head-on and definitely not sweep it under the rug.
Using the compliment sandwich can give your team the inadvertent impression you are afraid of facing difficult issues, having frank discussions, or worse, lacking confidence in your leadership ability. A compliment sandwich is a convenient supervisory technique, but definitely not effective. Next time you need to address an employee issue, take a breath, gather your facts, and face the concern head-on as a professional.
Related Articles
What Do You Think Destroys Leadership?
If you have ideas about actions that destroy leadership that might be helpful to readers, share them in the comments section below. Thanks!
Would you like to contribute a post?
