You wouldn’t think that positive feedback would have negative consequences but in some cases it might. Research conducted by the psychology department and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University indicates that certain kinds of praise from senior manager can lead employees to stand by decision that perhaps weren’t the best.

In one example senior managers were praised for being rational, despite the fact that they had recently hired another employee who wasn’t performing well. This praise caused them to be more likely to stick by their decision and spend more money training the employee rather than cutting their losses.

In another example when the praise was more general, employees were less likely to stubbornly stand by poor decisions. The moral? “Our research indicates that a supervisor cold make a problem even worse when he or she tries to restore the confidence of, say, the finance division by reminding everyone that they are skilled analysts at the same time the current allocation strategy is bleeding money and is in need of reassessment,’ said one researcher.

Boosting Self-Esteem Can Backfire in Decision-Making