New Leader Tuesday—The Feedback Series, Part 1: Moving Beyond Fear and Anxiety

Note from Art: over the next few New Leader Tuesday posts, I will share ideas and approaches to help first-time or early career leaders navigate those initial feedback and performance discussions. The goal of the series is to help you get started with feedback early in your tenure, properly armed with good habits.

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Perhaps the most challenging of all activities for first-time supervisors or managers is preparing for and conducting their initial feedback discussions.

First-time leaders typically navigate a range of emotions in anticipation of this topic, much like someone facing a public speaking engagement, which many view as something akin to a date with a firing squad.

Fear, anxiety and a general lack of confidence on how to navigate the discussion do battle with the manager’s knowledge that this is part of the job and often critically needed to deal with behavioral and performance issues in the workplace.

The outcome of all of this emotional turmoil is either avoidance of delivering feedback or a series of discussions that blend heaping helpings of praise with sugar-coated attempts at constructive input to no real effect. In many cases, the receiver in this discussion walks away either believing all is good or, genuinely confused about what just happened.

Developing proper context on the purpose and import of the feedback discussion is essential for taming the emotions that cause us to delay or sabotage our efforts.

Debunking Some of the Myths that Promote Fear of Delivering Feedback:

I’ve heard from hundreds of participants in workshops and many more through surveys on the “fear” issue when it comes to getting started with feedback, and the input is consistent:

Many first-time managers are uncomfortable “criticizing” others.

The Reality: feedback is about strengthening the behaviors that promote high performance and eliminating or altering those that detract from high performance. It’s not personal criticism, unless it’s improperly delivered.

Many are concerned that in delivering this constructive input, they’ll place their early, tenuous relationship with the other party in jeopardy.

The Reality: good employees and high performance professionals want feedback. For some, the more the better. They want to improve their performance and advance in their careers and they absolutely respect and crave good, timely, behavioral feedback. I hear many, many complaints from people who wish they were receiving any sort of feedback. I’ve not yet found a high performance professional who complained of too much good feedback!

Many first-time managers believe that they need to be liked to be effective as leaders.

The Reality: you don’t. While it’s nice to be liked, it’s not essential. You do need to be respected and respect is earned in a number of ways, including having the courage to sit down and talk with someone about performance in a constructive manner.

The Cure…A Bit of Structure and A Great Deal of Practice

Through a combination of learning some fundamental preparation and delivery techniques (which we will cover in this series), supported by ample helpings of live, workplace practice, your anxiety over these types of discussions will disappear in the rear-view mirror. Your self-confidence will grow and your comfort in delivering both constructive and positive behavioral feedback discussions will increase and make these discussions almost second nature.

A great by-product of learning to work with feedback is that your stars grow brighter and your teams find a higher performance gear. And for those problem employees and Bad News Bears teams, the feedback process is an important part of either gaining improved performance or moving them out the door.

Powerful indeed!

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Feedback is the single most powerful performance tool in your manager’s toolkit. After all, the purpose of feedback as stated above is to strengthen those behaviors that promote high performance and eliminate or improve upon those behaviors that detract from high performance. However, like learning to use any tool, some instruction and ample practice are necessary before you move from apprentice to pro.

Up next week: assessing the feedback situation.

Suggested Self-Study: I always encourage coaching clients and workshop participants to start a feedback journal and to use this journal to record experiences and reactions to feedback discussions. Much like logging your workouts or food consumption for a fitness or nutrition program, logging your feedback experiences reinforces good habits, encourages the elimination of bad habits and serves as a powerful reminder when preparing for new discussions.

For your first entry, think of a situation where you walked away from receiving feedback and were clear on the topic and motivated to improve or strengthen your performance. What was it about how the feedback discussion took place that was so positive? What did the provider of the feedback do that helped you gain an understanding of the issue and then leave understanding what you needed to change?
On the opposite side of the coin, think of a situation where you left a feedback session where you were confused and frustrated or even a bit angry. What in your opinion went wrong with this discussion?

I’ll share my thoughts on the self-study questions next week.

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More Professional Development Reads from Art Petty:

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