The Recognition Most Leaders Forget to Give

The words leaders choose to recognize often become the behaviors people repeat. In this episode, Zach distinguishes between the three types of recognition: Compliments, praise, and feed-forward. He explores how great leaders not only acknowledge success, but also provide the clarity people need to continue growing.

Learn More About Zach:

• Download my free Win More, Live Better Leadership Playbook here.
• Explore 1:1 coaching with Zach -- Schedule a free call here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Can you think of a compliment or a piece of encouragement that's maybe stuck with you for a long time? Maybe it came from a coach, a teacher, a boss, or just somebody that you deeply respected. Now I want you to ask yourself a follow-up. What exactly were they recognizing? This exact combination of questions was posed to me recently in a workshop, and it's reinforced that the words leaders choose to acknowledge often become the things that we continue to value, pursue, and repeat. Recognition has an incredible ability to shape someone's confidence, their identity, and really even the trajectory of their careers. So today on the podcast, we're going to discuss how great leaders don't just simply celebrate success, they help people understand what to keep producing so they can become who they're capable of being. Hey, before we continue, I want to extend a simple invitation. The heart of this show and really all of my coaching work is about helping coaches, executives, and leaders develop the mindset and systems to win not only professionally, but also personally. I offer a free coaching call where I can help you unpack a variety of situations that show up in my work with those that I serve. So if you're trying to level up your program's culture, looking for creative ways to develop your staff, if you're feeling stretched or burned out by leadership, trying to build a better system for how you train the mental game with your players, or you just simply want a space where you can be honest, unfiltered, and stretch, I'd love to connect. Even if working together isn't the right next step for you, my goal is to help you leave with greater clarity, a practical direction next, and useful resources. So if that sounds valuable for you or someone you know, visit the link in the show notes. I think one of the fundamental responsibilities of leadership is helping people understand what success looks like. So recently I attended this like leadership training where there was a facilitator, she's an executive coach, uh, and she introduced a very simple framework to invite the room to think about different ways that we recognize other people. The first category that she acknowledged was what we call compliments, which she framed as recognition centered on who somebody is. So, for example, you might tell somebody that you're one of the most dependable people that we have on this team. Um, the second category of recognition she offered was what she uh deemed as praise. Praise is recognition centered on something somebody did. For example, hey, you handled that client presentation really well. And then the third category was what she very deliberately framed as feed forward, um, recognition that identifies something valuable and then deliberately encourages the person to continue demonstrating it well into the future. For example, hey, the way that you anticipated the client's concerns and address them before they were even raised, I think that builds a lot of trust in that meeting and in that room. Continue preparing that way for important conversations in the future because it's going to make you an even better advisor. So those are just three categories, three examples that she offered to us. And then she posed that question that I opened the episode with. Think about a meaningful time when a boss, a supervisor, a teacher, a coach, or just anybody that you care about recognized you. What exactly did they recognize? And then which of those three categories did it fall into? So she invited uh all of us in this room. Now, I think I was uh I'm pretty confident I was the only person in this room of about 40 people that comes kind of from a sporting background. Most of these individuals uh kind of come from the corporate world, the business world. Uh, and people started to talk a little bit about their experiences and what examples came to mind, but the vast majority fell into uh the first two categories. People remembered being told things like they were thoughtful, reliable, um, resilient, uh, are just somebody that others could count on. They also remembered being praised for very specific things, like maybe leading a successful project, navigating a difficult conversation, maybe solving a complex uh complicated problem for their team, or just delivering strong results altogether. But there was only like two people in the entire room uh who could recall a very specific moment or identified a specific moment when a leader had gone one step further and then explicitly identified what they wanted that person to continue doing. So the facilitator used this gap or this discrepancy to share that when a leader acknowledges something positive, sometimes we imply what exactly we want you to keep doing into the future. So there's an the implied message is hey, that was valuable. We appreciated that, we would like to see more of it. But it lacks specificity. We may assume that the other person knows exactly what made their performance effective or which behavior we hope that they repeat, but that's not always the case. And if I tell someone you did a great job leading that meeting, it then leads the question of well, what is what specifically am I referencing? Was it the clarity of the agenda? Was it the questions that you pose? Was it how you created space for everybody in the room to contribute? Was it how you redirected the conversation when it got off the rails? Um, or was it just how you helped guide the group towards the right decision? Without greater specificity, the person is left to interpret what success actually meant. Now, that doesn't all of this doesn't diminish, I think, the value of compliments or praise, because again, for the vast majority of the room, when we raised our hand about what has stuck with us over the years, most of us had examples that were compliments and praise. Both of those are meaningful and deeply motivating. But this exercise and how this facilitator um guided the conversation, it kind of invited me to expand my perspective on recognition. Uh, because it showed me that all three categories all serve a different purpose. Compliments, praise, and feed forward, they all matter, but they don't all accomplish the exact same thing. So I've been thinking about this um a little bit more and thinking about this in the context of like coaching, for example, and with other leaders that I work with. I've been thinking a lot about how compliments can communicate in essence, hey, like I see you, I see the qualities that you possess, and I admire those. Praise communicates, hey, I noticed what you did and what you accomplished, and I want to give you a shout-out for those things. And then feed forward, in essence, communicates here's what you should keep doing in order to continue being successful. Now, each of those, again, don't replace the other. I think healthy leadership requires all three. But when our goal is to help somebody improve, grow, and become more consistent, that specificity matters. So think about an athlete who um, like, well, let me back up for a moment. Let me just give uh an example that's maybe more of a sporting example because I think this is one that I've heard a lot. Let's say a coach, baseball coach, tells a hitter, hey, I thought you had great at bats last night. It's a phrase I've heard many times. It's encouraging, there's no doubt. Um, but it leaves a lot of interpretation or a lot of room for interpretation. Was it because of the result that they got a couple of hits? Was it because they stayed committed to their approach, despite maybe not getting results? Was it because they work deep into accounts? Was it because I laid off pitches outside the strike zone? Uh, was it because you moved or advanced the runners over? The athlete may not necessarily know. So if you just leave it at great abats last night, um, they don't really have the specific reference point for what they need to keep doing. Now, on the other hand, you could approach this like, hey, I loved how you committed and stayed consistent to your approach all night, even when you fell behind in the count. You never once expanded the zone, which was great. I think if you keep trusting that process and that approach, the results are going to eventually pay off. That's a very different way to communicate, hey, you had great at bats. Um, and it what I think that specificity does, which is important, is it reduces ambiguity. It doesn't simply just acknowledge success, it identifies the behaviors that produced it. Um, and one last thing I'll point out, we talked a little bit about feedback in my conversation very recently on the show with Dr. Suzanne Bell. Um, but she actually elaborated on this quite a bit in a leadership summit that we invited her out to uh during my time with the Diamondbacks. And one of the things that stuck with me that she had shared is her whole presentation was about uh teams that, in essence, can outperform uh their expectations or outperform, in essence, their potential. And one of the core components of that is their ability to leverage high quality feedback. And she also very purposefully used the word feed forward. Um, and so I I love that idea of not just simply evaluating what has happened, which we do often with feedback, but really helping people understand what to keep doing. Um, and so all of this to say, what does this maybe look like in practice? I don't think the takeaway here is to give fewer compliments. People need to know that they're seeing, um, nor is it to praise less. People also deserve to have their efforts and accomplishments acknowledged. But where I do think there's an opportunity here is to ask one more question. What exactly am I hoping this person continues doing? Because every time we recognize something, we're also communicating what we value. So whether you're a coach, a leader, um, parenting your kids, or just encouraging even a friend, the more specific you become about the behaviors you're reinforcing, the less ambiguity the other person has about how to continue growing. So this week, my encouragement to you all, uh, regardless of the role that you play, is to pay attention to the way that you recognize the people around you. Offer compliments, celebrate accomplishments, but before the conversation ends, again, just add one more thought. Help them understand what they should keep doing. Thanks for listening.