
How to Motivate and Inspire
From The Look & Sound of Leadership by Essential Communications - Tom Henschel
November 6, 2025 · 21 min · Episode 261
About this episode
The episode explores how a leader successfully motivates and inspires a direct report through positive feedback and effective communication.
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 presentOur 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...
People in this episode
Host: Tom Henschel
Topics covered
- motivation
- inspiration
- positive feedback
- leadership
- performance improvement
Keywords
- motivation
- inspiration
- positive feedback
- leadership
- performance
- feedback ratio
- workplace improvement
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