Kim Dawson is the director of employee experience at the Austin-based employee engagement platform, YouEarnedIt. That "experience," she acknowledges, hasn't always been a positive one.

Specifically, Dawson, like many leaders, tells a story about an excellent employee of hers whose performance nose-dived. So Dawson talked with the woman's manager, who was new to the position, She then sat down with the employee herself. "We had a very frank conversation about the changes in performance. We asked what had changed to negatively affect her productivity," Dawson said by email. "We discovered that she was feeling burnout. We also learned that her new manager had a completely different management style than her former leader."

After the discussion, the new manager was coached to give the woman the support she needed. From there, things improved.

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