One thing successful leaders never do in public

One of your employees shows up unprepared for an important meeting. A couple of people are continually chit chatting instead of working. Someone else comes in late and leaves early almost every day.

Your first reaction as a manager might be to call those people out right when you see the behavior, either to nip it in the bud or to make an example of them and demonstrate to everyone that you’re in charge and paying attention.

But that sort of public criticism can backfire — in a big way.

The one thing you should never do as a manager.

You may have heard the old adage, “praise publicly, criticise privately,” and it’s especially true for managers. How would you feel if you were called out and publicly embarrassed by your boss? Pretty terrible, I bet, and so would anyone else.

As a manager, knowing what to say — and when to say it — is a vital skill.

It turns out, public criticism and the resulting embarrassment and humiliation that goes with it isn’t an effective management tool. Some managers think that people will be motivated because they don’t want to be called out again, but in fact, that kind of public criticism most often just breeds resentment and feelings of ill will towards the manager. Most people in this situation will focus on their embarrassment rather than the message you were trying to get across.

And the idea that you might be “making an example” of them to show other employees what not to do? That doesn’t work either. The other employees witnessing the public criticism are just more likely to mistrust you in the future.

What you should do instead.

While it’s sometimes challenging not to call out bad behavior when you see it, the better choice is to make your comments in a private situation.

Instead of publicly criticising an employee:

• Quietly call them into your office or another private space.
• Ask questions before you provide feedback to aim for a more complete understanding of the situation
• Try to avoid the word “but.” Instead of saying, “You’re good at your job, but you’re always late…” try, “I’m impressed with the work you do. Is everything OK? You’ve been late quite a bit lately…”
• Give them the opportunity to own the mistake. A criticism or correction will have more weight when the person agrees with your assessment and owns up to the mistake.

There is rarely, if ever, a call for publicly decrying an employee’s behavior, and the most skilled managers know how to diffuse a situation and take their criticism offline to a more appropriate and private venue for maximum effectiveness.

Published in collaboration with LinkedIn

Author: Bernard Marr is a globally recognized expert in strategy, performance management, analytics, KPIs and big data.

Image: Colleagues stand outside of their workplace.