Let's face it: No one wants to work under a leader who rebukes more than commends. After a while, it becomes exhausting.

The purpose of any criticism in the workplace is to express disapproval. It is to indicate that the work someone has put in isn't as good as it could be. While this negative feedback is meant to bring about improvement in an employee, too much of it often produces damaging effects.

As a leader, it's important to be aware that constant criticism has the power to affect an employee's self-esteem. It can tear a person down over time. As a result, this will negatively affect the way the individual performs his or her job and may even lead the person to seek out other routes of employment.

It's also not the best way to give off a good impression of yourself if you want to keep gaining new employees in the future.

Constant criticism leads employees to believe that nothing they do is right, thus they end up feeling like it's impossible to satisfy their employer. This causes a weakened commitment to the job, because they'll become unhappy and discouraged from putting forth anymore effort.

In fact, Alexander Kjerulf, an expert who studies happiness at work and founded the organization Wohoo Inc., found that the second biggest factor contributing to peoples' unhappiness at their jobs is lack of praise and positive reinforcement.

But what is positive reinforcement?

If you're wondering exactly what positive reinforcement in the workplace is, it's openly acknowledging and praising an employee's effort and contributions to the company. It's an important action that needs to be in the workplace — not only for the employee's sake, but also for the company's.

If people feel like no amount of effort they give is appreciated, why would they want to give any more?

Handing out positive feedback from time to time not only gives employees more motivation to keep up the good work in the areas they are succeeding in, but it also encourages them to work harder to improve in the areas that need it. In this way, they know that they're at least doing some of the job right and not everything wrong as endless negative feedback makes it seem.

Andrea King, the manager of advertising sales at MultiView, is a leader who takes into consideration the importance of handing out positive reinforcement to employees in the company.

"Individual recognition is a large player in the management game," King said. "No matter how big or how small, it's important to let your employee know you notice their efforts."

Compliments vs. criticisms

Keep in mind, there needs to be a healthy balance of both — or at least more positive reinforcement than negative. If you truly want to see a person grow in character and as an employee for the company, you need to make sure you're not just spewing out criticisms every which way.

According to "1001 Ways to Recognize Employees," author Bob Nelson determined that employees being told about the difference they make at the company and receiving recognition for what they do were ranked as the top two motivators of job performance.

Despite this, Nelson found that managers don't believe that positive reinforcement matters. Instead they believe a paycheck should be good enough, but it’s not. Money ranked fifth.

The results of a study done by the University of Michigan Business School showed that "bosses should use positive comments a lot more — about six times more — than criticism." Not only because it could build better relationships among leaders and their employees, but it also promotes a more positive work environment.

A final note of advice

It's also best to avoid handing out criticism mixed with a compliment because oftentimes the criticism itself will cancel out the compliment.

For example, if a manager were to say, "You did some great work today, but you need to try to be a little faster next time," all the employee will hear is the second part of that statement. The only thing going through his or her mind will be either disappointment or frustration for not being fast enough that day.

The employee may feel as if he/she didn't do good enough to receive the full compliment without the negativity tacked onto it. To avoid this mistake, just stick with saying one or the other.

If you've been giving out more criticism than praise, it's never too late to turn that around. It will pay off in the end.