Admiration — does admiration help the leader or the organization at all?

“…the flattering mouth brings ruin.”

Don’t confuse admiration with encouragement. A true encourager is on par with a trusted adviser. An encourager is not a flatterer–their praise has everything to do with intent. The better the leader is at discerning true intent the more effective they will be at graciously detecting and deflecting flattery.

Flattery is the communication of admiration that beguiles the receiver and is often a duplicitous form of manipulation.

Beware of Admiration. For example, if a subordinate says, “I admire the way you handled that difficult situation.” That statement tells nothing of their motivation for their declaration of admiration. Perhaps, what they are really communicating is respect, as in “I admire (I see a gap between your leadership and mine and I hope to lead like you do one day) the way…” However, what is more consistent is flattery, “I admire (I want something from you so I will insincerely praise you in hopes of getting what I want) the way…”

Beware of believing you deserve recognition. Know this, there is almost assuredly someone somewhere who can do what you do, but better. Convince yourself that there is always somebody who can do your job better than you can. This will spurn you toward staying alert. Be graceful when recognition comes. For if you do a job well enough for long enough, at some point there will come some form of recognition. But, the leader must be satisfied with the job that is well done and done well.

The leader should seek recognition for his followers. Deflect the recognition of others toward those who have helped you achieve the success you are being recognized for.

There is a myth that reward follows recognition. This explains why so many people pursue recognition. I once sat with a emerging leader and asked him if the incentive program that he was on was structured and providing true incentive for him? He followed it up with “don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d rather take the incentives and disperse them among the people that are under me to give them an incentive to do a better job and get better results!” He continued, “I get enough satisfaction out of getting the results that that I’m striving for.”

I was blown away by this statement never before have I had an emerging leader demonstrate this level of commitment and understanding. He understood that incentive wasn’t the reward! The reward was achieving the results based upon the goals that were set. He understood that mind-set is critical to growth–a long term mindset not a short term.

Admiration is death by a thousand insincere kisses. Appreciation is one genuine kiss, the memory lasting a thousand years.