How to Motivate and Inspire

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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