Your Boss Loves Feedback!
One of the most common reasons that people give for resigning from their job, is that they can’t work for their boss.
We know, from our personal experience, that there isn’t an oversupply of great leaders out there… so, rather than job-hopping every 6 months, we settle for the boss we’ve got, and try to find ways to work around their problematic behaviors.
But it’s only a matter of time before that wears thin, and we decide to take the nuclear option – we resign!
Before you push the big red button, it might be helpful to think about other ways of improving your situation. Perhaps you could improve your relationship with your boss by giving them feedback?
Over the course of my 30+ year career in senior corporate roles, I saw lots of situations where a misunderstanding of intent led to catastrophic outcomes – in both directions.
You’d be amazed at how much unspoken animosity is created, simply as a result of a communication breakdown.
You’d also be amazed to hear that most leaders above you in the structure are willing to change, if they’re aware of the negative impact they’re having.
But, in the absence of any feedback, they’ll rationalize and tell themselves that everything is fine – and if it’s not, it must be someone else’s fault.
We all do this, to some extent, and your boss is only human.
I like to separate feedback into two categories: impersonal, and personal.
All feedback that goes in a downwards direction – in other words, to someone below you in the organizational hierarchy – can be considered personal, simply due to the power imbalance.
But if you choose to give your boss feedback, I think it’s helpful to think of whether the feedback you want to give is personal, or impersonal.
Impersonal feedback would be things like:
- Influencing their decisions
- Having input to problems
- Identifying opportunities for improved performance
- Managing resource constraints etc
Personal feedback is about the individual, so for your boss that would be things like:
- Pointing out problems with their behavior
- Things that they are doing to impair team performance
- Identifying their leadership blind spots
- Analyzing their mistakes
Giving your boss impersonal feedback is tough enough… but giving personal feedback can be what we call a CLM – a career limiting move!
If you want to earn the right to give your boss feedback, there are 3 important criteria you have to meet:
- Your own performance must be strong;
- You should have already established a foundation of trust by giving valuable impersonal feedback; and
- You have to know what you’re talking about, and have thought it through carefully
Before you just blurt out what you think your boss needs to hear, make sure you’ve earned the right to tell them.
It took me decades to achieve what I consider to be an elite ability to deliver feedback. And, as part of my life’s purpose to improve the quality of leaders’ globally, I’ve made all of this experience and insight available in the Handle Conflict module for our LBT program.
So, I do look at feedback as a gift – I welcome any information I can get that helps me to improve… but on several occasions, someone who reported to me gave me feedback that was entirely off the mark.
And, because their own performance was questionable, and they hadn’t earned the respect of their peers, or me, they didn’t have the credibility they needed to tell me where I was falling short.
I’m trying to be a better person, but I’m still not going to have someone whose performance is awful, try to tell me what I’m doing wrong!