How Love Bombing Employees Can Backfire
Or, perhaps it should be called “praise bombing”.
The Cleveland Health Clinic puts it best: “Love bombing is a form of psychological and emotional abuse that involves a person going above and beyond for you in an effort to manipulate you into a relationship with them. It looks different for every person, but it usually involves some form of: Excessive flattery and praise.” Source.
I will add to this that I feel “love bombing”—which has become a big topic in romantic relationships—is further defined by the person excessively praising and flattering another and then dropping off. Like planes coming into a city, carpet bombing and then leaving. It can feel like that, with you left to wonder if they will come back.
In the context of a work setting, this could be rephrased as “praise bombing.” Leave a comment if you know of a better term for this.
Where Is This Seen in a Company Setting?
You may have this when a new employee is being introduced and or onboarded. A leader or hiring manager may have good intention on introducing them under a positive light, but goes overboard with the flattery and praise. Could be an email or Slack message, or an introduction at an all-hands where they gush over the accomplishments of the new employee to the existing team. Details and metrics may even be exaggerated, or accolades reinforced to the point that it gets uncomfortable.
There is nuance here in that I feel they want to present a person’s relevant accomplishments so the team knows how to lean on them. And then the flip side is where they are presenting them as god-like, and a savior to the team. Love bombing—or praise bombing—an employee is the latter.
How Is Love Bombing Detrimental to the Team?
This can be detrimental in a number of ways. One is that the new employee now feels they have to live up to these outsized and exaggerated claims of their past, and their skillset. I feel some managers do this unintentionally because they are excited to have finally filled the role, and do it as a sort of brag. I also had one manager tell me that they do it to “set a high bar from the beginning.”
Setting a high bar, or even reinforcing the team or company’s standards of excellence can and should be done separate from the announcement of the new employee. This ‘bombing’ puts outsized pressure on the new employee, and can be detrimental and distracting in their onboarding. Like in a romantic relationship, this can have them questioning “How am I supposed to live up to that?” and “Am I expected to praise in the same way?”
This is also detrimental to the team. They have been working at a certain level for some time, and may have even gotten reviews during that time. Now, in comes this new employee who just publicly received this outsized praise before they even set foot into a project. This can have the team questioning their own work, how they are perceived, and thinking “am I being expected to produce at that level now?” When the praise is outsized and exaggerated, it can put psychological and emotional strain on them. Now they are distracted, and not working their best.
Praise and Encouragement Done Right
First, it takes some self-awareness to know when you may be love / praise bombing an employee. While I often see this happen in two distinct situations—new hires, and for a manager’s favorite employee—it can happen across the board, even upward in gushing and exaggerated statements of accomplishment of those above them.
If you are reading this because you feel you may be doing this, I recommend the following:
- Course correct immediately. The next time you go to give praise or introduce a new team member, try your best to do the tips below. There may be no need to address the previous love bombing, but that is something you will know with your team. Nothing wrong with being open about it: “hey, I’ve recognized this about myself, and I am learning to do better. I am going to work on it.”
- Stick with what’s relevant. When introducing a new team member, feel free to do so with the intention of answering “what skills does this person bring to the team?” and “how can my team lean on them?” In fact, to help keep yourself from being excessive, use just that: “For the role of _______ I feel they bring X, Y, and Z. In this role, you can lean on them for A, B and C.”
- Allow your team to discover. No one wants you to explain the whole book to them. So, encourage your team to discover what makes this person a good fit for the team themselves. This can happen by including them in the interview process as a panel interview, and if they weren’t able to interview them, ask that they set up a one-on-one call to learn more about each other.
- Use less adjectives and adverbs. It’s easy to exaggerate something or someone with a simple adjective. “At ____ company they created this amazingly productive tool that rocketed the sales into the stratosphere...” This could be reworded as “They bring experience from having produced a productive tool, and I feel we can lean on them to bring that same energy to our ______ project.”
Why This Matters
It’s threefold: it’s how you present, setting up the new employee, and the current team feeling like they are still valued.
When you love / praise bomb a new employee, it can come across like you getting a new puppy and gushing over it. (We know ‘puppy love’ wanes pretty quickly once they start chewing on shoes.) You set yourself up as being enamored with new things and inconsistent. And when you don’t uphold that same energy over time, you set the precedent that you are a manger that constantly needs new shiny things to be happy. That can put unnecessary stress on your team to produce well, but not in the way or for the reasons you want them to.
It’s totally appropriate to give a new employee new challenges in their career. Excessive praise is not how you do it. This is getting into toxic territory where they are being pushed to produce at a high level, based on situations in the past being exaggerated. That’s literally rewriting history. Raise the bar at the project level with clear expectations of outcome; not in their introduction to the company and or team.
Excessive flattery and praise can have the current team questioning your support of them. “Did things just change with the addition of this new team member?” “Is this the new bar we are all being held to?” “How are we supposed to compete with that?”
Of Note
Do you have a new or different term for this? Not sure “love bombing” is appropriate, or works. “Praise bombing”… maybe. Perhaps there is one already in use? Let me know!
