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The Art of Leadership: Rewarding Excellence

The Art of Leadership: Rewarding Excellence

Nobody works for nothing. That is to say, people work because there’s something in it for them. Financial remuneration, prestige, recognition, pride, a sense of doing the right thing. The preferred rewards for a job well done vary from person to person. But the need to get something for one’s hard work is universal.

Great leaders know all about this. They realize that they cannot simply expect their employees to do their best work, day after day, year after year, without some sort of meaningful acknowledgement. They understand that to get the most from their people, they’ve got to recognize their accomplishments in ways that have an impact, that serve to reinforce hard work and encourage continued creativity and innovation.

Here are a few effective ways to reward employee excellence:

• Show them the money. That is, remunerate your high achievers in accordance to their worth. What value does an employee bring to the company? How do his efforts impact the performance of his team or department? What’s the impact on the bottom line? Think about output, not input. Compensation (such as bonuses) based upon results achieved, rather than tasks performed, is both a powerful motivator and an effective reinforcement.

• Offer sincere thanks. A well-deserved pat on the back, a written letter of commendation, some private (or public) words of appreciation and recognition can be extremely effective.

• Provide meaningful perks. Offer some extra flexibility to work from home where feasible. Give your high achievers the afternoon off from time to time. Send them on a golf outing or to a show. Take them out to lunch at the restaurant of their choosing. The possibilities here are nearly endless.

• Help them keep up the momentum. A motivated employee will relish the opportunity to work on a challenging, new project. Success breeds success. Give your outstanding employees a say in where their talents will be used next. Encourage them to keep on growing.

• Develop them. Mentoring, coaching, and advanced training need not be viewed merely as a means of remediating poor or deteriorating performance. Invest your developmental time and dollars in your top performers. That’s the way to raise the bar, accelerate the growth of your strongest performers, and drive your organization to greater heights of success.

There are innumerable ways to recognize the efforts and accomplishments of your employees. If you’re not sure what approach to take with a given employee, remember this: You can always ask! What better way to engage her in the process, demonstrate your respect, and provide her with a meaningful and impactful reward for outstanding performance?





The Art of Leadership Rewarding Excellence - To learn more about this author, visit Liz Bywater's Website.

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Linda Richardson
Linda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website

Dianne Crampton

Dianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here.

Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009.  Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010.  To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here.

- Visit Dianne Crampton's Website


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Liz Bywater
(Visit Liz's Website) Dr. Liz Bywater is a highly respected career success coach and corporate consultant. As president of Bywater Consulting Group, she assists her clients through private career consultation, executive coaching and leadership development, career transition coaching, pre-hire assessment, team development, management training, workshop facilitation and keynote speaking. Liz is internationally recognized for her expertise in workplace performance and leadership excellence. As such, she has been interviewed for radio as well as print and online media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the NY Times, Crain's Business, USA Today, Yahoo! HotJobs and more. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Cornell Entrepreneur Network, and the Society for the Advancement of Consulting. You can follow Liz's Career Success blog here: http://bywatercareersuccess.blogspo t.com. For more information, visit http://www.bywaterconsultinggroup.c om. To sign up for Liz's free e-newsletter, filled with tips for improving individual, team, and organizational performance, send an email to info@bywaterconsultinggroup.com. Or call toll free: 800.846.4546.

Liz Bywater is a Gold author on EvanCarmichael.com
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