Bogus Self-Esteem and the Dangers of Shallow Praise
Whatever you do, don’t criticize or correct. You might damage someone’s self-esteem. (Sarcasm intended.)
Bolstering, maintaining, and protecting self-esteem is the sacred cow of modern society. It’s a grievous evil to do anything that might cause others to feel bad about themselves or their performance.
Bogus self-esteem:
If you want to feel good about yourself, be good and do good. But don’t feel good about yourself just because you showed up – unless showing up reflects your peak performance.
Baumeister et al. write, “Always praising and never criticizing may feel good to everyone concerned, but the data we have reviewed do not show that such an approach will produce desirable outcomes.”
“… Hitler … attracted followers by offering them self-esteem that was not tied to achievement or ethical behavior—rather, he told them that they were superior beings simply by virtue of being themselves, members of the so-called Master Race, an idea that undoubtedly had a broad, seductive appeal.”
Shallow praise:
- Cheapens excellence.
- Encourages arrogance.
- Inspires indulgence.
Those who feel good about themselves for – no good reason – legitimize exploitation. They’re offended when challenged or corrected. They desire advantage without earning it.
Legitimate self-esteem:
Praise-worthy achievement, virtue, and effortful-work are foundations of legitimate self-esteem.
It’s normal, even healthy, to feel sad when you do bad.
“We encourage linking self-esteem to learning and improvement.”
“… As the person performs or behaves better, self-esteem is encouraged to rise, and the net effect will be to reinforce both good behavior and improvement.” Baumeister et al.
What dangers do you see in bogus self-esteem?
How might leaders help people feel good about themselves?
The context of encouragement is disappointment. When you eliminate disappointment, you devalue encouragement.
Bonus material:
Self-Esteem Check: Too Low or Just Right, Mayo Clinic
High Self-Esteem Isn’t Always Healthy, WebMD
Note: Self-worth and self-esteem are separate issues. All human begins have worth. Baby boys and little girls have worth beyond cats and dogs. This post defines self-esteem as positive feelings about our self.
I read about the XYZ tool several years ago; use it to give praise and for tough conversations. In situation X, when you do Y, I feel Z. When the processing machine stops, and I see you collaborate with the team to reduce downtime, I am positive we picked the right supervisor. Much better than “good job today”.
Thanks Scott. Brilliant! Say what you see and explain the value/impact.
I am leading my team to focus on accountability this year. I will be sharing and discussing this post with them. So good!
Thanks Michael. It’s always great to inspire conversation. Best wishes.
It is a balancing act between positive and constructive feedback. I have always found that when you are straight forward with people they have a whole lot more respect for you in the long run. They may not like what you are saying now, but they know you are always honest and up front with them. The good ones and even sometimes the bad ones like that.
Thanks Pat. All constructive feedback can be discouraging… “Don’t I do anything right?” Isn’t anything good enough?”
A little dark gives meaning to the light.
What dangers do you see in bogus self-esteem? We devalue criticism which when done in a humble non threatening way will lead to growth. Yes, value feelings but put in context to purpose, direction, tasks, jobs, job growth. We in all ways seem to be a PC driven society as you note, we can’t disagree, we can’t correct, we can “trigger” cause it might cause someone anxiety and pain. When we do this, we do not help others develop confidence, skills needed to succeed and we devalue celebrating true growth and success along life’s pathway. It did not use to be that way. In a crude sense I’d say everyone needs to grow a pair and just get on with life because it almost seems like to encourage in ways seen before can trigger.
Thanks Roger. Your insights help me. “humble non threatening way” says so much. Don’t use anger to fuel constructive feedback, correction, or direction.
I don’t like giving out stickers for this reason as it can cheapen the learning process. I’ve had people get upset at me because I don’t. I’ve always seen people hand out stickers “just because” or children fake act to get them. How do you make people feel important? Help them, do something that supports them. I would rather have a conference paid for because of me busting my butt to get work done than false tokens of appreciation.
Thanks your… We learn to respect others and ourselves when we earn something.
There’s value in unconditional positive regard. We love our kids no matter what. But there’s also value in feeling pride in working hard and being recognized.
We devalue hard work when we honor those who don’t work.
The art of critiquing can be rewarding, as well as debilitating to a workforce. As long as we are discussing matters in a straight forward, “no BS” conversation with the intent to guide and make better, all well and good. When the intent is to knock people down the ladder, you will disrupt the entire organization. We are here to “better the people” and “they will better us” in the long run, when you take care of the workers, they really do take care of you. Comes back to constructive criticism and subordinate criticism, each have a time and place, it comes down to how we present it for the betterment of all.
Thanks Tim. For some reason, Kim Scott’s book, Radical Candor, came to mind when I read your comment.
Challenge directly and care personally. The greater the challenge, the more we need to care.
A brilliant phrase here: “The greater the challenge, the more we need to care.”
Dan, this can be a tricky conversation but I’ll jump in. I believe we can have a foundation of self-esteem/worth/self-respect that is intrinsic and untied to our behavior or performance.
This is important because It’s incredibly hard to change behavior or improve performance while feeling bad about self.
Having self-esteem independent of performance creates positive energy to change our behaviors and improve performance and self-esteem in the context of work (or any other context) where it would be foolish to feel good about ourselves if our performance isn’t respectable.
So, begin with self-esteem that is not tied to behavior or performance. Use that positive energy to change and improve behavior for work, a relationship or anywhere else.
Thanks Allan. I’m glad you jumped in. I think Baumeister’s research question whether the value of self-esteem causes or correlates with improved performance. Obviously he opts for correlates.
I wonder if self-worth and self-esteem might be separated?
I’ll confess that I find it difficult to feel good about myself if I’m not delivering value that I’m capable of delivering. This brings capability to the conversation.
Thanks for the clarification on Baumeister’s research. Defining how we use self-esteem and self-worth would be a great discussion in the future, good point.
I did my master’s thesis on Self-esteem so this has been a topic I love for over 25 years and I think there is so much confusion on the topic. I’m a coach now but when I was a therapist I came face to face with the challenge of helping people make big changes when they felt like crap about themselves All Because They Tied Their Sense of Worth to Performance. So they were in a bind. They wanted to perform better to feel better about themselves but it’s excruciatingly had to change behaviors/performance while not feeling positive about self.
It’s easy to be on a roller coaster. Feel good when performance is up and feel bad when it’s down.
I think there’s a better way, a more stable way and that is to unhook self-esteem and performance. Feel good about self first, then use that to perform.
I think when you said, “Those who feel good about themselves for – no good reason – legitimize exploitation.” It’s brilliant. The Hitler example is a bit extreme, but the point is made. Something I see on large projects is when workers get rewarded on a lottery (e.g. drawing numbers, raffle, etc.). Individual praise for an individual act could help avoid growth of “bogus self-esteem” you mention. We once use to gift gas gift cards every quarter to every employee at our site, and the dollar amount was based on the degree to which we met our financial, environmental, and personal safety goals. We have since abandoned this program. We found that this reinforcement had no effect on whether our performance continued in a positive trend. It is possible the reason for this is because the collective was being rewarded for something they may not have all been able to relate. A craftsman may feel no attachment to company profitability. An office employee may not feel as attached to personal safety performance as an employee working in hazardous environments might. The wholesale reward was giving false self-esteem to employees for simply just showing up to work doing the same thing they do every day. No one changed their habits based on the value of their most recent reward. We’ve since stockpiled the gift cards and distribute to individuals based on spectacular individual performance, and have found that this positive reinforcement, for the most part, influences people to want to continue to do well. Personally, I do not think it is the value of the card that matters to the recipient; I think the gesture means a lot more.
Honesty will get you a whole lot further than bolstering or avoiding the truth. It doesn’t help anyone to hear they performed great when you know they performed poorly. That’s a direct reflection of that person’s leadership and everyone surrounding him or her. That’s why you hear when one person in the teams wins we all win. That’s because grooming is done by an environment by giving honest feedback and in a positive way. If someone in leadership is failing to give honest feedback, they should reconsider being in another position.