There is no such thing as a high performer with a bad attitude. When we talk about dealing with difficult people, think of performance as having two major components: Skills and Attitude. Now here's somebody that has great skills and a great attitude, this is a high performer. 
One of our recent studies asked more than 30,000 employees to rate the statement “I know whether my performance is where it should be.” In an ideal world, every person in every job would say ‘I always know!’ But that’s not what I found. Just look at this chart...
High performers need positive feedback; they do a great job and they should have that acknowledged. However, phrases like “great job” or “nice work” are so vague as to be virtually useless. And in some cases, they may even do harm.
Here's a frightening statistic: Only 14% of employees think that performance appraisals are useful! And high performers are especially unhappy with their reviews.
Why? Because most managers don't offer even a simple 'thank you' to their high performers. And if they do say 'thank you' it's usually vague nonsense like 'nice job' or something equally non-specific.
To be a great leader, you can’t fear being seen as the bad guy/gal. And I’m not just talking about obvious ‘bad guy/gal’ situations like telling someone “you’re fired” or “you’re not getting a raise this year and here’s why.” I’m also talking about simple situations like telling someone “I need you to change the way you submit that form.”
Whatever you call them, performance appraisals (or employee evaluations or annual reviews) are painful. But our high performers aren’t making these events strenuous; it’s our low performers that make us dread these conversations.
