Month: July 2024

In our work with major health systems over the past 20+ years, the “golden” 5-to-1 ratio has been one of the most enduring recommendations we make to leaders who want to better engage and support team members is to provide balanced feedback. This research-based strategy reveals the power of five positive comments for every one criticism in high-performing organizations. This practice and the underlying research were cited in a 2013 Harvard Business Review article by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, “The Ideal Praise-to-Criticism Ratio.”  By design, this leadership principle focuses on quantity. But sometimes we see a limiting flaw in the way people think about the 5-to-1 ratio.   Insightful leaders understand that the practice works best when they develop a mindset and bias toward

Transformative leaders who make exciting, innovative things happen in their companies usually possess a higher sense of urgency than their colleagues. They have a bias for action over indecision that others admire. But to be successful over the long-term, these same great leaders also know when to suppress that sense of urgency. Their emotionally intelligent side tells them their best reaction sometimes is to sleep on it. Especially when it comes to people-centric leadership skills and practices, effective bosses understand that knee-jerk reactions are seldom productive. Even worse than being ineffective, they can leave lingering scars that affect an employee’s sense of engagement, commitment, and drive to improve.  Philosophically, that may make perfect sense. But the challenge for leaders is that knee-jerk reactions are emotional,