Why Praising Character Is as Crucial as Praising AchievementBringing Balance to Personnel Reviews

The path to the top, in the opinion of most, is to be an achiever, a top performer. That view is drummed into us from childhood.

In elementary school, recognition and honors go to those whose achievement is superior. There are few awards, if any, for stellar character. The closest to it are good conduct awards, which are themselves more of a reward for performance than character.

And this pattern of rewards continues through our education and into our careers. Interestingly, periodic employee reviews have come to be called "performance reviews." Have you ever heard of companies or organizations conducting periodic "character reviews"?

This suggests that our culture puts much more stock in a a person's achievements than in his or her character. In fact, we tend to praise people almost exclusively on the basis of performance. But when we criticize them, we're prone to ascribe their shortcoming to some flaw in character. It seems that serious conversations about character take place only when it breaks down.

I take up the ramification of these tendencies in this podcast. And I suggest an approach to evaluating employees that is a marked departure from how reviews are typically conducted.

A transcript of today's program is available at https://www.upsizeyourleadership.com/episodes.

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