I have traveled around the world and presented or consulted with managers and leaders from 14 countries across a variety of industries on the subject of giving meaningful and effective employee recognition.

Yet, in all these situations there was a common problem experienced by many of these managers and leaders.

Many of them were uncomfortable with giving recognition to peers or employees.

I have heard a long litany of reasons for their apparent discomfort. Perhaps by examining the different reasons people give for their discomfort we can learn what we can do to rectify these situations and become more comfortable in recognizing those we work with.

Let’s examine a few of these discomfort reasons.