How to Motivate and Inspire

After a leader turns around the performance of one of his direct reports, he and his coach explore how it happened. And how to make it stick. Core ideas in the episode: Workplaces improve when positive feedback is present Our natural human negative bias is a barrier to giving positive feedback. Learn to notice when things go well. Tell people how they are helping solve the puzzle that is work. Research says the most effective feedback ratio is 4-to-1, positive to developmental. Positive Feedback might sound like this: Recognize what’s going well – and be specific Appreciate how it’s helping solve the puzzle Express your thanks Developmental Feedback might sound like this: Describe what happened – and be specific Explain how it affects the puzzle solving effort Express your hope for a different outcome You can Sign-up for more resources and tools in our monthly email. If you’re thinking about coaching for yourself, or for someone on your team, let’s talk. tom@essentialcomm.com . This episode is tagged in three categories in our podcast library : Managing Yourself Perception – How You Perceive Others Relationship Building Related episodes to listen to are: 146 - Building Empathy 119 - Creating Devoted Followers 212 - How to Coach Your People 255 - How to Deepen Relationships at Work 260 - How to Guarantee Psychological Safety Thanks, as always, for your reviews! Until next time, thanks so much for listening. From The Look & Sound of Leadership team

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How to Motivate and Inspire is an episode from The Look & Sound of Leadership by Essential Communications - Tom Henschel.

This episode is 20:47 long.

This episode was published on Nov 6, 2025.

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