Who doesn’t remember a terrible reprimand for quite questionable reasons, received at some point in life by a ham-fisted boss? Not to mention how embarrassed we’ve felt when, having climbed up into the position of a boss and being fully entitled to reprimand ourselves, we’ve seen our ham-fisted reprimand meet with the astonished glance of […]

Some time ago I was thinking about how dangerous praise can be: I’m sure you’ll find the following story quite instructive. Goods duly delivered. Enjoy your holiday. Excellent emergency management! Congratulations. Thank you. I hope you’ll remember that when you’re approving salary raises! These text messages exchanged were in a few minutes by a manager and […]

Want a nice career? Want to be a leader? Then you need to learn to reprimand. How? There are different styles. There’s the shouted reprimand, the whispered one, which ends with a slow exhale from the nose (“remember that I have an infallible memory …”), the one that starts with good intentions (“I have to […]

Destructive reprimand is one of the most widely used practices and one of the most feared by people working in an organisation. We’ve already seen how some “real leaders” use it. Why? For many different reasons. The destructive reprimand is characterised by a few patterns, which are worth learning to recognise and analyse. Let me […]