In this issue:
→ Why employees feel processed instead of seen
→ The disconnect between what leaders are rewarded for and what people need
→ One habit that makes recognition specific enough to matter
Here’s a finding that should stop every executive mid-scroll.
Hogan’s research across roughly 10,000 employees and 21,000+ executives in 25 countries found zero overlap between the traits executives are rewarded for and the traits employees actually want in their leaders.
Zero. Not small. Zero.
Organizations promote for drive, ambition, and results. Employees want integrity, communication, and someone who sees them.
And AI is widening the gap, because AI is spectacular at the rewarded traits and useless at the wanted ones.
The subtle shift
As AI handles more of the measurable, people increasingly evaluate leaders on the immeasurable:
→ Did you notice my contribution, or just my output?
→ Do you know what I’m trying to become, or just what I produce?
The hidden risk
Generic recognition is now instantly detectable. Everyone knows what AI-drafted praise sounds like: polished, warm-ish, and completely interchangeable.
Recognition that could apply to anyone lands as recognition of no one.
The leadership shift
Being seen requires evidence of attention. Specificity is the proof. And specificity requires the one thing you can’t delegate: actually paying attention.
THE SPECIFICITY TEST
Find the last piece of recognition you gave. A message, an email, a line in a review, something you said in a meeting. Pull up the actual words. Three tests. Three minutes.
TEST 1 — The swap test
Replace the person’s name with anyone else on your team. Does the sentence still make sense?
If it does, you recognized a role, not a person. That still counts for something. It just doesn’t do the thing you think it does, because the person receiving it can run this same test in half a second and usually does.
TEST 2 — The room test
Could someone who wasn’t there have written this?
If yes, you recognized an outcome you heard about, not work you witnessed. Outcomes are visible from a distance, which is precisely why recognizing them proves nothing about your attention.
This is the test AI-drafted praise fails hardest. A tool can only ever write from a distance.
TEST 3 — The how test
Does your recognition name what they did, or what happened because of what they did?
“Great results on the Q3 push” is an outcome. “The way you reframed that objection in the client meeting changed the whole room” is a method.
Method is the proof of attention. It’s also the only kind of recognition that tells someone what to repeat.
The rewrite
Take the recognition that failed one or more tests and rewrite it in one sentence, naming one specific choice that person made. Not what happened. What they decided to do.
If you can’t name a specific choice, you’ve found something more useful than a rewrite. You’ve found a person whose work you’ve been evaluating from the outputs.
Two more this week
Write it yourself. Unpolished and specific beats polished and generic, and the gap between those two is now instantly detectable by anyone who has used the same tools you have.
Ask one person: what work are you proudest of that nobody noticed? Then notice it. The question is only worth asking if you do the second part.
Question of the week: Could the recognition I gave last week have been written by someone who wasn’t in the room?
Before AI reshapes your organization, make sure it isn’t reshaping your ability to think.
The Human Intelligence Assessment is free and takes about ten minutes. It measures the three capabilities AI cannot replace: Awareness, Adaptability, Authenticity.
→ Take the free Human Intelligence Assessment
Lead what AI can’t.
JoshHMiller.com