Mark Murphy / Leadership IQ Blog
What Is Emotional Intelligent Leadership?
Emotional intelligent leadership refers to a leader’s ability to recognize, understand, and manage their own emotions – and those of others – to guide teams effectively. In practice, this means combining emotional awareness with sound management skills. Unlike traditional leadership that might focus solely on IQ or technical expertise, emotionally intelligent leadership centers on “emotional quotient (EQ)”, a skillset encompassing self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and interpersonal effectiveness.
Leaders as a Coach: Embracing the Coaching Leadership Style
Discover how the leader-as-coach approach transforms organizations. Explore frameworks like transformational and servant leadership, the GROW model, and real-world case studies (IBM, Microsoft, WD-40) showing how coaching boosts engagement, innovation, retention, and performance.
Qualities of Good and Great Leaders
Learn the key traits that define exceptional employees - from leadership skills to emotional intelligence. Comprehensive guide for professional development.
Leader Versus Boss: Understanding the Difference in Leadership Style
Leader vs Boss: Explore key differences in leadership styles, their impact on team performance, and practical strategies to become an inspiring leader.
Leadership or Management: A Comprehensive Research Report on Essential Organizational Capabilities
Leadership or management? This comprehensive report synthesizes 200+ studies proving organizations excel by integrating both. Real cases, frameworks included.
Good Employee Attributes: Key Traits and Characteristics of a Great Employee
Research-backed guide to the top employee qualities employers seek. Explore 11 critical attributes from communication to creativity that define workplace excellence
This “Popular” Feedback Technique Is Actually Destroying Trust
Most leaders want to give feedback that's honest and effective. But one of the worst management techniques—still taught in too many leadership workshops—is the COMPLIMENT SANDWICH.
You've seen it before:
"You're doing great work… but you really need to step it up… but I know you'll figure it out."
"You're a great team player… but your reports are always late… but we appreciate your dedication."
It's well-intentioned. Managers think they're softening the blow by cushioning criticism with praise. But in reality, they're doing the opposite: they're training employees to distrust compliments altogether.
Why the Compliment Sandwich Fails
A Leadership IQ study found that 63% of employees prefer negative feedback as candid, unvarnished facts—without sugarcoating.
Here's why: when you give someone a compliment right before criticism, their brain learns that praise is just a setup for bad news.
Over time, the moment employees hear "you're doing great," they brace for the inevitable "but." Compliments stop feeling genuine, and the criticism gets lost in the confusion.
How It Damages Employees' Trust
If you've ever been on the receiving end, you know how it feels. Instead of making criticism easier, the compliment sandwich makes you suspicious of every positive remark:
- "Are they only saying this because something bad is coming?"
- "Do they actually think I'm doing well, or is this just a trick?"
- "Should I ignore the praise and just wait for the criticism?"
The intent is kindness. The impact is distrust. Praise loses meaning, and criticism gets diluted to the point of uselessness.
The Right Way to Give Feedback
The fix is simple: keep compliments and criticism separate.
Pure praise: "You've been a great asset to the team."
Pure constructive criticism: "Your last report contained errors in the data. Let's improve the accuracy for next time."
No "but." No mixed signals. Just honesty.
Why Employees Want Directness
Many managers soften feedback because they fear backlash. But research doesn't support that fear.
Our study found employees who receive candid, straightforward feedback are 40% more engaged and 30% more likely to improve performance.
That's why one of the skills we teach in What Great Managers Do Differently is how to deliver feedback that's direct, motivating, and actually sparks improvement—without gimmicks like the compliment sandwich. Managers walk away with scripts and tools they can start using the very same day.
The Leadership Impact
Great leaders don't rely on gimmicks like the compliment sandwich. They respect employees enough to be clear:
- Compliments are given on their own, so they actually mean something.
- Criticism is delivered directly, so it's actually useful.
Because clarity is a form of kindness. And nothing undermines feedback faster than mixing the two.
Bottom line: If you want to be the kind of leader who helps people grow, drop one of the worst management techniques in existence: the compliment sandwich.
And if you want to go deeper into the science of feedback, motivation, and engagement, join me in What Great Managers Do Differently—a 6-week online certificate program that's helped thousands of leaders unlock 100% performance without burnout, drama, or disengagement.
Parent-Child Dynamics in Transactional Analysis and Leadership
Transactional Analysis (TA) divides personality into three "ego states" -- Parent, Adult, and Child. In TA theory, the Parent ego state represents behaviors and attitudes we learned or copied from parental figures. This state can manifest as a Critical Parent (authoritative, scolding, or controlling) or a Nurturing Parent (caring, protective, and guiding). When someone operates from the Parent state, they often act out of past conditioning, using language of "should/shouldn't" and an authoritative tone.
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