What does good (and bad) feedback look like for leaders?
Every good leader knows that giving feedback is a key part of their job. But perhaps because we know it’s so important, many of us get tied up in knots trying to figure out how to do it well.
As is often the case when we’re overwhelmed, there’s a temptation to rely on oversimplified rules. “Focus on facts, not feelings” sounds very professional and reasonable… until you remember you’re dealing with people, who do inevitably experience emotions!
Even the ever-popular “feedback sandwich” (frame a negative with two positives) has problems. As Kim Scott points out in Radical Candor, there’s no magic ratio of praise to criticism, and trying to force that “can lead you to say things that are unnatural, insincere, or just plain ridiculous […] like ‘Wow, the font you chose for that presentation really blew me away. But the content bordered on the obvious... Still, it really impresses me how neat your desk always is.’”
Though there’s no silver bullet, there is a common-sense approach leaders can take.
Start by seeking criticism and giving praise
If you’re trying to move towards a culture of giving feedback, step one is asking for criticism. Depending on the norms where you are, you may need to get creative about this – a lot of people won’t trust that their boss really wants their critiques… But it’s worth putting in the effort for several reasons:
You’ll show that you know you’re not infallible, and want to be challenged and improve yourself.
It’s a genuinely good learning opportunity. As Scott notes, “few people scrutinize you as closely as do those who report to you.”
Getting criticism and seeing how it feels – what works well, what doesn’t – will help you hone your approach to giving it.
These discussions can build trust between you and your team, showing that you won’t dish out what you can’t take.
Having opened those lines of communication, step two is to start giving praise. After that you can move onto step three, and add criticism to the mix. Be sure to continue actively praising people though, and generally err on the side of more positive feedback than negative.
How to praise (and how not to)
When I say “add praise to the mix”, I don’t mean empty praise. I mean radically candid praise: personal, specific, and well-chosen. This feels great to receive, because you know you’ve earned it, and that your hard work is both noticed and appreciated.
An example would be something like “well done for your presentation. The research was impeccable, as always, and all the effort you’ve been putting into overcoming your fear of public speaking is really paying off.”
Praise which you don’t deserve, which isn’t specific to you, or which seems insincere? That doesn’t feel good at all. Rather than building trust this type of praise can actually undermine it, and cause resentment or confusion among the team.
In Radical Candor, Scott lays out the pitfalls leaders can fall into if they don’t get the “care personally, challenge directly” balance right. Not enough of either? Manipulative insincerity. Plenty of care, but little challenge? Ruinous empathy. Plenty of challenge, but without care? Obnoxious aggression.
Ruinously empathetic praise tends to take the form of empty or misplaced compliments. You want to say something nice, but it lacks thought about whether it’s accurate or specific to that person.
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Manipulatively insincere praise doesn’t ring true, and often comes off as sucking up. We’re used to this being aimed towards a leader, but it can happen any time someone is more concerned with making people like them than anything else.
Obnoxiously aggressive praise tends to look like backhanded compliments, and can be very belittling. It can even reveal unpleasant underlying prejudices – “most women aren’t good at maths, but I didn’t find a single mistake in your spreadsheet, well done!”
How to criticise (and how not to)
Radically candid criticism, like praise, should be personal, specific and well-chosen. It’s also important to keep the critiques coming when things are going well. This demonstrates that criticisms aren’t crises, and your team values continuous improvement.
Manipulatively insincere and ruinously empathetic approaches don’t generally lead to criticism. In the first case it’s because the leader is overly concerned with being liked; in the second it’s because they don’t want to make people feel bad in the short term (even at the cost of the long term).
On the other hand, the obnoxiously aggressive approach can lead to unhelpful criticism which is hard to take on board – Scott calls it “front stabbing”. It’s not informed at all by care for the person receiving it. “You did a rubbish job on that project” isn’t useful feedback – what was bad? Did they have sufficient resources and a good enough brief to do the job well? Is this the right moment to speak about it?
Being more thoughtful about how you give (and receive) praise and criticism can make all the difference. Following these steps will lead to a culture which not only encourages an open exchange of ideas and feedback, but also gives guidance in a more effective way.
Caerus Change: a systemic approach to culture change
Moving your team or company’s culture to one which embraces feedback – and knows how to give and receive it well – can feel daunting. But it’s far from impossible. I spoke with Scott Chambers , director and co-founder of Caerus Change, which uses Amy Edmondson ’s principles of psychological safety to help organisations flourish in today’s VUCA business environment.
A core part of that is creating an environment where people can speak up openly, knowing they’ll be listened to and respected. Here are a few of Scott’s insights into what leaders should focus on when trying to encourage more praise and criticism in their team:
Thank people for feedback first. Before you even get to the content of what they’ve said, make it clear that you appreciate them speaking up – especially as you may end up disagreeing with their critique or idea. “If you don’t, if you react to the contents without first appreciating the fact that something’s been brought to you at all, then they might not bring you anything else.”
Make the reward for speaking up greater than the risk. Your team needs to see frequent, small examples of speaking up being rewarded, because it inherently feels like risky behaviour. “As humans, we are far more fearful of loss than we are desiring of gain. And often, the value of giving feedback isn’t personal – it’ll help the team or the company – while the risk can feel very personal.”
Choose your battles, but don’t avoid skirmishes. The aim here isn’t to make a mountain out of every molehill, but nor is it to avoid all conflict until the stakes are sky high. Practising with healthy, low-stakes conflict and safe-to-fail experiments will make it much easier for your team to speak up when it really matters.
You don’t have all the answers – and you don’t have to. You don’t need to be a subject matter expert to be helpful when someone brings you a problem. You just need to know how to listen, engage with your organisation’s systems, and ask for help from actual experts. “This challenges some people. The vulnerability makes them scared. ‘I don’t want to appear as if I don’t know. I don’t want to take the initiative in forming new policies where we don’t have any. I’m just fearful of acting – it’s much easier to do nothing and hope that the problem goes away.’ But sometimes it does so in the form of losing a talented team member.”
A final word from Scott: “The trick is to find the space to stop the fear-driven emotional response overwriting your capacity to think more clearly. The danger is you’re trapped in this fear, which is cumulative and contagious as well. Breaking that pattern is critical to success in today’s world.”