The Problem with Rewarding Mediocrity

This could be the longest post I’ve ever written if I actually listed all the problems with rewarding mediocrity. But in the interest of time I‘ll just talk about the biggest one. 

First of all, Authentic Leaders do not, ever, reward mediocrity. They hold their people to a high standard. Not an unreasonable standard but one which will require their people to push themselves from time to time. 

Lessor leaders and people who merely occupy a leadership position often do reward mediocrity, even if it is unintentional. They can’t push themselves so the standards they set for themselves are not exactly high either. Since they accept their own mediocre results they are more willing to accept them from others as well.

But that does not benefit anyone. Not the supposed leader. Not the people they supposedly lead. Not the organization where they are working. It especially does not benefit people who already possess the desire, energy and motivation to push themselves towards greatness. 

Those people will only tolerate watching the mediocre performance of others being rewarded for so long. Soon enough they take their efforts somewhere else. When mediocrity is consistently rewarded in an organization it results in many of the organization’s top performers heading for the exits at the first opportunity. 

Years ago when I was working with the Dale Carnegie Organization we had a company we were working with that was concerned about the disparity in the pay between their top performing salespeople and their poor performing salespeople. So they decided to put all of their commissions into a pool and divide them evenly between all the salespeople. 

Their thinking was that it would build a greater sense of team. They believed that the salespeople would hold each other accountable for greater effort. They were certain it would make their sales organization much more collaborative. 

We tried to dissuade them from this plan. They were convinced it was a great idea. They could not have been more wrong. A plan like that looks good a paper, I could understand why they thought it could work. But plans made in a vacuum hardly ever survive their first contact with air. 

When the company’s leadership introduced the plan the poorer, mediocre salespeople were thrilled. The top performers were dead set against it. I don’t know anyone who couldn’t have predicted that response from the people working their butts off to succeed. 

Within weeks of the plan being implemented not a single salesperson who had hit their quota in the past 24 months remained with that company. Mediocrity had been rewarded and mediocrity was all that remained. 

If you’re going to Authentically Lead your people you’re going to have to figure out, often by directly asking, what motivates them and then use that information to encourage them to push themselves forward. 

You’ll need to hold everyone accountable to the standards of excellence that lead to success. And you can only reward the people who meet those standards. 

When you reward mediocrity you will get more of it. If you reward it often enough then one day you’ll wake up to discover that mediocrity IS your new standard of excellence. Except you, and your team, will be a long ways away from true excellence.

Want more of LeadToday? I’m changing things up on my Twitter feed for subscribers. On March 2nd I began publishing two videos each week focusing on an element of Authentic Leadership. I’ll post these videos each Tuesday and Thursday morning. They will be about 10 minutes long so we can get into the topic in a more meaningful way. The investment for subscribers in still only $5 a month. That’s for at least 80 MINUTES of quality video content on leadership a month. 

If you’re interested in taking a look head on over to my Twitter profile page. If you’re not a follower yet just hit the follow button. It will change to a subscribe button and once you hit that you’re on your way. You can cancel at any time you’ve decided you have nothing left to learn about leading the people who you count on for your success. 🙂

Here’s the link to my Twitter… https://twitter.com/leadtoday 

Don’t Confuse Excellence With Perfection

I’m a perfectionist who consistently does things in an imperfect manner. I’m a person who hates settling for good enough yet I frequently accept something that is as good as I can get. 

 

I make those compromises in the interest of getting things done. 

 

There are many people who would criticize me for making those compromises. But I believe a job, project or assignment completed, even if a little less than perfect, is better than one never completed. 

 

One of the five great weaknesses of ineffective leaders is hesitancy. They may be brilliant, they may have great ideas and they may have passion. They are also in need of the perfect circumstance or the perfect timing in which to pursue their passion or idea. Sometimes if they are not certain of a perfect outcome they hesitate to the point of never actually getting started at all. 

 

For these leaders the hunt for perfection is a slippery slope that most often turns into the bondage of procrastination. 

 

I would never encourage anyone to halt their pursuit of perfection. That’s not what I’m recommending here. What I’m recommending is to continue moving towards your goal or objective while you’re in pursuit of perfection. You are unlikely to find perfection but the pursuit itself will likely lead you to excellence. 

 

Some people believe that excellence and perfection are identical twins. They are not. Perfection does not guarantee excellence and excellence does not require perfection. There are few things that waste more time than doing something perfectly that doesn’t need to be done at all. 

 

Excellence does require patience. You will also need an understanding that patience is the acceptance that things can happen in a different order than you had in mind. Knowing how perfection will be achieved is not a prerequisite to starting. Even knowing what perfect looks like is not required to begin. 

 

Get moving and whatever knowledge gaps you have will be filled in along the way. 

 

You’ll rarely find a perfect time to begin anything. If you’re not sure where to start then start with what you’re sure is one right thing to do. Your first step does not need to be a giant leap. Baby steps are okay and though they may be small they are considerably better than no step at all.

 

No matter how long your journey, how lofty your goal or how big your dream, your success will begin with a single step. Never forget that simple fact.


The pursuit of perfection is an honorable pursuit. It is the attainment of excellence however which will lead to your ultimate and undeniable success. Chase perfection today and you’ll be very likely to discover that excellence tomorrow.