Getting in the Right Frame of Mind to Deliver Difficult Feedback

Feedback is the breakfast of champions. 

—Ken Blanchard

 

I’m a firm believer in the power of feedback in the workplace. After all, how can you expect your employees to grow and to give their best performance if you don’t give them notes on how they’re doing? I am also a firm believer in, Getting in the Right Frame of Mind to Deliver Difficult Feedback. 

 

Providing positive reinforcement is easy. It feels great to give someone a well-earned “Great job!” and a pat on the back. But feedback conversations aren’t always full of sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes they involve telling someone where they are falling short and need to make improvements. 

 

To be honest, those types of conversations aren’t very fun. When forced to rank all of their responsibilities, most managers would probably put “giving difficult feedback” at the bottom of the list, even though that task is a critical part of their job. Why do most bosses find the conversations about difficult feedback so hard to have?

 

Feelings of Guilt

 

It’s a challenge to grow professionally and move up the corporate ladder when you’re not receiving feedback on your performance. 

—John Rampton

 

Sometimes managers shy away from some of their less pleasant workplace responsibilities because they feel bad about how their actions might adversely affect their teams. Guilt is a heavy burden to bear. It can drive people to make poor decisions, such as choosing a wrong course of action—or avoiding essential tasks out of fear of the outcomes. 

 

Good bosses cultivate strong, positive relationships with their teams, and it’s totally understandable that they would be reluctant to do anything that might damage those relationships. All humans have some degree of empathy, which means we care about how other people feel. Because good managers have empathy, of course they might anticipate feeling guilty about how their feedback might be received:

 

• “What if this upsets the employee so much that they’re no longer able to be a good contributor to the team?
• “What if this makes the employee unhappy enough to quit?”

 

It’s okay to consider these questions. It’s good to have empathy for other people—and it’s a key element of the high emotional intelligence that the most effective leaders have (and cultivate!).

 

But don’t stop there! Take those feelings of empathy even further and ask yourself, “Would this critical feedback actually be a positive thing for my employee?” 

 

Remember, the goal of feedback isn’t to be punitive; rather, it’s to help someone improve. When you give feedback in this spirit, you are actually acting in your employee’s best interest. You are helping them identify ways to increase their skills and competencies, to expand their knowledge, and to become better team members and colleagues. 

 

Also keep in mind that, in countless surveys over the past several years, employees have repeatedly (and overwhelmingly) indicated that they want their bosses to give them constructive feedback. Yet one recent study “found that people consistently underestimate others’ desire for constructive feedback,” pointing out that a significant problem with this approach: “not recognizing others’ desire for constructive feedback may lead people to provide less feedback, potentially hurting others’ outcomes.” Clearly, managers need to do a better job of meeting their employees’ needs in this area!

 

In short, conversations about difficult feedback are vital—and usually welcome—steps in someone’s professional growth and career development. That’s nothing to feel guilty about!

 

Fear of Damaging Relationships

 

When we make progress and get better at something, it is inherently motivating. In order for people to make progress, they have to get feedback and information on how they’re doing. 

—Daniel H. Pink

 

For many managers who are reluctant to give difficult feedback, their primary concern is how this conversation will affect the relationships they have with their employees or the relationships their employees have with each other. That concern is understandable. After all, workplaces run on relationships. But if you’re asking yourself, “What if the employee no longer likes or respects me or their teammates after this conversation?” consider these key points.

 

First, the likelihood that this conversation will tank the employees’ estimation of you or their colleagues is pretty slim. Obviously, you shouldn’t go into a feedback conversation with your metaphorical guns drawn, ready to treat the employee as an adversary who needs to be taken down a peg or two. If you assume (reasonably, as I’ve pointed out above) that the employee welcomes this feedback and if you deliver it with empathy and make it clear that your goal is to help the employee, you’re not likely to harm the relationship. On the contrary: showing employees that you genuinely care about them and their careers can improve your relationships with them!

 

At the same time, your support of an employee’s personal professional growth can also help strengthen the relationships they have with their colleagues. When someone improves their knowledge and skills, they become a more competent, more engaged employee—which translates into a more competent, more engaged teammate, too. Just as a “bad egg” can drag down the whole team’s morale and performance, a great employee can lift up the rest of the team. Don’t underestimate the influence that feedback—and the growth that follows it—can have on relationships: helping one employee improve can have positive ripple effects throughout your team, your department, and even the entire organization.   

 

Imposter Syndrome

 

When I won the Oscar, I thought it was a fluke. I thought everybody would find out, and they’d take it back. They’d come to my house, knocking on the door, “Excuse me, we meant to give that to someone else. That was going to Meryl Streep.”

—Jodie Foster

 

“What if I don’t really know what I’m doing? What if I’m just a big faker?”

 

Whenever you advance in your career or achieve another professional milestone, you might hear these questions kicking around in your head. Pretty much everyone struggles with these sorts of questions from time to time. Uncertainty, insecurity, doubt—those are all very human feelings, and sometimes it’s hard to ignore them enough to fully enjoy our successes. 

 

The fact that you’re in a leadership role and reading this blog, though, is a clear sign that you are not a fake. If you’re unsure whether the difficult feedback you need to share with an employee is accurate (or helpful), or if you’re not confident that you’re even qualified to have those sorts of conversations, put those doubts to rest. Not only have you worked your way up the ladder, but by reading this blog you’re actively pursuing self-improvement—and those are two indications that you do know what you’re doing.

 

To dispel your imposter syndrome, you need to fully embrace your role. Lean into your competence and your responsibilities:

• Remember that you earned your way into your manager role. You deserve to be here.
• You know how to lead a team—and leadership includes helping a team’s members become stronger so they can all work better together.
• Giving feedback (including difficult feedback) is an essential part of your job. You signed up for this, and you owe it to your employees to be the best leader you can for them. 

 

Final Thoughts

 

By creating a feedback culture within your office, you ensure that people continue to learn, grow, and challenge themselves. 

—Neil Blumenthal

 

If any of those mental and emotional roadblocks have prevented you from giving difficult feedback, I hope I’ve shown you how to get past them. As long as you approach this task with empathy and confidence, it isn’t nearly as difficult as people assume it will be. Giving constructive feedback to an employee is a win-win scenario: your employee gets knowledge and support to grow and to advance their career, and you get an employee who can make better contributions to the team and to the organization! 

Now that you’re mentally prepared to give difficult feedback, the next step is to learn how to do it. That’s where my new online training module, “Giving Difficult Feedback,” comes in. It covers topics such as preparing for feedback conversations, avoiding common pitfalls, and dealing with employee responses to feedback. To learn more about this module or sign up for it, click here or respond to this email so we can chat!