I recall years ago having to give feedback to one of my direct reports, who I knew was undermining my decision-making, and bitching about me. As a conflict-avoidant person I wanted to ignore this and pretend it wasn’t happening but I knew I couldn’t let this continue, so I pulled on my big girl pants and summoned her into an office. It was a horrible conversation, made so much worse by my determination to toughen up, in trying to be more courageous I lost all my compassion.
Recently one of my clients was struggling with a team member she had inherited, who was simply not delivering to the standards expected of a senior leader, however, this executive had not been given a performance review by the previous CEO for 5 years! Understandably she was now getting defensive because she had very little awareness of how she was letting the team down.
And another client of mine was pulling her hair out because she was receiving no feedback from her CEO, and yet when we held a meeting with him he provided some very specific examples which he said should come as no surprise because he has been telling her about these issues for some time!
So many of us suck at giving feedback!
And we can see from the above stories that it lands us in all kinds of trouble and leaves us entirely ineffective at making progress, collaborating, and building a high-performing team. One of the most important things we can do as leaders is give feedback well because how else can people in our team learn and develop?
My favourite piece of advice I have read is from Brene Brown’s Dare To Lead, which absolutely taps into my mantra of being a leader who is both courageous and compassionate:
Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.
So I would like to share 5 tips:
As a leader, it is essential that we put time and energy into delivering feedback in a timely manner (annual reviews are not going to cut it!) and yet so many of our own stories about feedback get in our way of doing this skillfully.
If you would like to become a courageous and compassionate leader who both gives and receives feedback well then let’s have a chat.
Recently one of my clients was struggling with a team member she had inherited, who was simply not delivering to the standards expected of a senior leader, however, this executive had not been given a performance review by the previous CEO for 5 years! Understandably she was now getting defensive because she had very little awareness of how she was letting the team down.
And another client of mine was pulling her hair out because she was receiving no feedback from her CEO, and yet when we held a meeting with him he provided some very specific examples which he said should come as no surprise because he has been telling her about these issues for some time!
So many of us suck at giving feedback!
And we can see from the above stories that it lands us in all kinds of trouble and leaves us entirely ineffective at making progress, collaborating, and building a high-performing team. One of the most important things we can do as leaders is give feedback well because how else can people in our team learn and develop?
My favourite piece of advice I have read is from Brene Brown’s Dare To Lead, which absolutely taps into my mantra of being a leader who is both courageous and compassionate:
Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.
So I would like to share 5 tips:
- Prepare the person for the conversation: “Do you have a few minutes to talk about how that meeting went?” Or “I would like to offer you some feedback about that meeting, when would be a good time?”
- Be specific in your examples: rather than using generalisations or judgments such as “you’re unreliable” use specific, fact-based points such as “I notice that you missed your last 3 deadlines”
- Describe the impact of their behaviour: “When you don’t deliver that report on time my team has to stay back late at night to prepare for the board meeting”, “when you cancel your meetings with me at the last minute I feel like you don’t value my contribution.”
- Ask for the other person’s reaction and really listen to what they say. This is the point at which Brene Brown suggests a ‘circle back’ to enable the person to process what you have said and then come back to you with their thoughts or suggestions.
- Collaborate on what a way forward could look like.
As a leader, it is essential that we put time and energy into delivering feedback in a timely manner (annual reviews are not going to cut it!) and yet so many of our own stories about feedback get in our way of doing this skillfully.
If you would like to become a courageous and compassionate leader who both gives and receives feedback well then let’s have a chat.
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