# Praise April 12

We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

For Day 12 of the 30-Day Quotation Coach4aday Challenge the word I am featuring is PRAISE. This challenge requires you to identify a word and they provide a quote.

One of the traits of any good leader is correcting behaviors that will prevent the team from achieving results. What many coaches/leaders miss is to also the concept of reinforcing the positive behaviors already in place. I like to refer this as “catching people doing the right thing”. When that happens PRAISE them.

Guidelines

Different methods of recognition work dependent on the individual. Some love public praise while other relish that it takes place in private, or in a one-on-one setting. What you have to do as a leader is avoid some pitfalls.

1. Don’t praise everyone-Work place praise is not the same as youth sports. In America we are fascinated with making sure every young child playing recreational sports gets a trophy, so their feelings don’t get hurt. Don’t praise those that don’t contribute.
2. Praise is not generic-Make your praise specific look at examples below for a hypothetical team member named Tom
   1. Good-Thanks for the extra effort, Tom
   2. Better-Tom thanks for making the extra 5 cold calls each day-that got us new clients.
   3. Best-Tom I can’t thank you enough for elevating the culture on the team by doing more than is expected. We needed to see growth not just maintain last year sales numbers and your initiative helped our team achieve that.
3. Don’t you be the exclusive source of what to praise-Look for your team to provide you with examples of others exceeding expectations.

Quote

Robert Collier was an author of inspirational books. He is often associated with being one of America’s earliest success authors. He had strong opinions about chemical added and denatured foods. Here is his quote:

Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement – and we will make the goal.