Performance Review Phrases for Initiative

Performance Review Phrases for this core competency can be frustrating.  You can have a really good worker at whatever the job is, but the person lacks taking initiative.  Initiative means the person has a drive within themselves to do a better job, be a better employee and seeks opportunities to improve or learn more.

Some examples of positive free performance appraisal phrases could be:

Terry explores new opportunities without being pushed to do so

Terry requires minimum supervision

Terry is always pursuing ways to further development or better himself

Terry always takes responsibility for his area and their actions

Terry is always challenging the way it has always been done and seeks to improve the environment

Terry champions new ideas, objectives or tools

Terry seeks and will take on any new opportunity that might present itself



Some negative performance review phrases could be:

Terry doesn’t apply himself as much as he could given his experience and knowledge

Terry requires constant supervision to get his work completed

Terry doesn’t appear to want to learn any new techniques or skills

Terry has trouble doing his tasks without help or supervision

Terry doesn’t seek out opportunities to learn and grow within his role

Terry fails to think out of the box and prefers to do things the way they have always been done

Some goals or objectives that can be set for an employee who is lacking initiative are to say to him that it the employees responsibility to seek opportunities to learn and grow in their role.   Tell them not to wait for opportunities to come to them, but to seek out those opportunities.   Have the employee do research and trends within their given role or industry.  Tell the employee that you need them to be more independent and rely less on managers and peers to complete their tasks.  Help them define what skills they should be seeking out and what opportunities “might” be out there for them.  Again, it is your responsibility as their manager to define the expectation, but it us to the employee to actually live up to the expectations that have been set.

Immediate Resources for you:

Performance Review Software

Instant Access to an spreadsheet with performance review phrases

Amazon Books we recommend (some with ebooks available)

Performance Review Templates – immediately downloadable

If you have other suggestions or more key performance review phrases  for this core competency that might help people give performance reviews please comment to this post..

Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks

About Nancy Smart

Comments are closed.