Page 95 - The Voice of Authority

they perform, how can they trust you to tell them the truth
about other things?
Employees know which ones aren’t pulling their own
weight. When they’re all treated the same and receive the
same feedback despite the refrain “we reward people based
on performance,” they discount other promises as well.
Trust dips even lower.

Great Performers Who Need to
Grow and May Go

Some leaders fear complimenting their star performers.
They figure if they tell these stars how well they’re doing,
they may develop their talents and move on.
What’s worse? That they grow and leave—or become
discouraged and leave? Without encouragement, the val-
ued employees may feel that you don’t care about them
and leave to go where somebody cares more or will en-
courage them. Great performers need honest feedback as
much as the underperformers.

Your Own Performance and Mistakes

A business development manager for a large oil company
reported at the beginning of the year that he was about to
close a large gas contract with a net profit of millions of
dollars. When the deal started to fall apart, he couldn’t
bring himself to tell his colleagues that he had overstated
the certainty of closing the contract. At the end of each
quarter, he presented trumped-up, vague explanations
about why the contract still remained unsigned—yet kept
insisting that the deal would close “shortly.” All budgets
had been based on his projections. And when the deal did

Is It Purposefully Unclear? 83