Stop hiding the leaderbord: Ways leaders can turn comparison into performance

In high-stakes, performance-driven environments like sales, the end of the year means measuring and displaying success as an unavoidable part of annual audit. Yet, as leaders take stock and look into the next year, the performance rankings become visible and they tend to trigger social comparisons. Oftentimes, this dynamic leads to passive superior high-performers, discouraged low-performers, and toxically competitive culture. The research conducted by a SalesQuarters’ partner, Bart Dietz, and his colleagues in 2023 suggests that the problem does not lie in the concept of social comparison itself, but should be seen as a leadership failure to shape employees’ interpretation of those comparisons. This unique scientific study based on a field experiment with 290 employees and their formal leaders, outlines how leadership can shift the human tendency to compare in counterproductive ways into continuous performance improvement.