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Praising your top performer in front of the team can turn coworkers against them

Leaders thank their top performer in public to set an example. Many coworkers doubt they could ever measure up and quietly turn against that person

Klaus Vedfelt / Getty Images

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Leaders hold people up as examples all the time. In team meetings, managers thank the analyst who stayed until midnight to finish a client deck. Chief executives send company-wide emails calling frontline staff heroes, and many companies run recognition apps that post every thank-you to a feed the whole office can scroll. Each of those leaders wants everyone else to see what good work looks like and to try to match it.

Instacart held up its entire workforce as an example in 2020. With grocery orders pouring in during the early months of the pandemic, the company ran a "Household Heroes" campaign to recruit 300,000 more people to buy and deliver groceries for its customers, complete with social media ads that hailed them as heroes. A team led by Wharton's Lindsey Cameron interviewed some of those workers that summer and again six months........

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