Praise and reproof both has place in managing people and their work in business provided bosses use them judiciously. Praise will encourage and motivate whereas criticism demotivate. Good work that fulfils company objective must be praised and maintained and the opposite, bad work, must be rebuked and curtailed but both should be practiced simultaneously and appropriately. If we specialise in praising good behaviour to earn good impression for themselves but would not criticise bad behaviour thinking that would earn negative impression for themselves or become unpopular, then it leads to the situation of exploitation, subordinate would take boss for granted as he would always or in any case praise only. On the other hand if the boss specialises only in criticising bad behaviour and earn for himself an image of strict and disciplinarian boss but would not praise the same subordinate when he does good work, such behaviour on the part of the boss lead to hostile and diffident attitude in the minds of the subordinate which is eventually demotivating. Hence, praising a good behaviour in the individual and 'punishing' bad behaviour in the same individual must be practiced simultaneously in tune with the relevant behaviour which would be proper and conducive for effective work and that will not create either an exploitative or hostile situation. In this situation, the employee would understand that he could get praise by good behaviour and bad behaviour alone is not tolerated.
A word of caution however is needed. 'Punish, the act, behaviour, not the person, his act is bad, it would spoil the product, but not the person who is bad. That way, basic human relationship is unharmed. Further, always, praise in public, criticise privately. Often, bosses do the opposite: shout at him in public and feel proud and important but praising done privately, "you see, I did not want to tell in front of everybody, you have done a good job"! Bosses think that if they praise in public, it would go to employees head and they in turn sit on their head! But, as I said earlier, if both praise and reproof are practiced simultaneously whenever their appropriate behaviour occur, in public or private depending on the nature of behaviour and always emphasising the act and not the person, then, it will not lead to any unhealthy situation, in fact, it would lead to most satisfying and productive environment to all concerned.