Could you elaborate? I would agree that random praise from a manager is not an especially good way to evaluate how well one is doing. But to me, "doing a good job" inherently depends on things that aren't purely determined by introspection.
Here's a scenario for example: I do things for people, that are well received, my manager talks to other people, and it leads to people outside my department asking for special projects.
I create something, of which I'm reasonably proud, and it gets copious praise from the requestor. But it turns out, I learn through the grapevine, there are several people who I never came in contact with, who are the actual intended end users, who ultimately refuse to use it at all, because it doesn't fit into their workflow, because the manager who asked me to do it doesn't understand it.
Without external feedback, there's no way to tell what effect I'm having on the organization and the world. And I would think that every employee at any level has to deal with this.