I’ve had so many conversations with a wide range of leaders in different companies, organisations and sectors and yet there are themes to the kinds of comments that are dressed up as useful feedback, but actually are pretty useless at best, or damaging at worst.
So I’ve created a top 5, along with what you can do if you’ve ever had this feedback yourself and what to say instead if you’re ever moved to utter these words yourself.
In at 5….
“Just be more confident.”
The feedback equivalent of telling someone to “just relax.” Not very helpful on its own. How, exactly, shall I do that? Worse, it implies confidence is a personality trait you either have or don’t, rather than something built through specific action (whether that’s presenting to a crowd, having the difficult conversation or speaking out in front of the board.)
If you’ve ever had this feedback yourself, first of all, know that without context and specifics about what ‘more confidence’ would look like, it can go in the bin. Then know that confidence does come with doing stuff that’s a stretch, a few times, and taking the time to reflect afterwards, checking for learning, and going again. And sometimes we have the energy for the stretch and sometimes we don’t.
If you’re a leader tempted to blurt out ‘just be more confident’ in frustration – you’re human and you’re allowed to be frustrated. Try this:
Name the specific moment confidence was missing, and what doing it differently would have looked like. E.g. I notice you lost your nerve at the moment the head of the Bank of England asked you a question. It is so hard being put on the spot like that, everyone gets nerves. What’s going to help you take a pause and reach for the answer next time? (because you are wise and you did have answers.)
In at 4:
“You’re doing great, keep it up!”
OK so this is a surprise entry because what’s wrong with being told ‘great job!’ – well nothing inherently but it’s just a massive missed opportunity. It feels nice for about four minutes, then the junior leader realises they’ve learned nothing about what specifically to keep doing, and starts wondering if it was even true. If you’ve ever cheered runners over a finish line you’ll have experienced how meaningless shouting ‘great job’ over and over starts to feel.
If you’ve experienced this from a boss, or have a boss who does just say ‘Great job’, ask them ‘What did you specifically appreciate about my approach there? It would be useful for me to know for my learning.’ Or words to that effect.
Or if that feels too much, ask yourself for a bit of self recognition ‘Yes, I did do a great job, and this is why….’
Tempted to yell ‘Great job everyone’ as you leave the office as having ticked the ‘acknowledgement’ box? Instead, practice spotting specific qualities and strengths in individual team members and take the time to reflect those back to them. E.g. ‘Thank you so much for your attention to detail on that report, I can always rely on you to take care of the details, which is really relaxing for me as a director, knowing how you’ve got that covered.’
Be wary not to inadvertently acknowledge behaviour you don’t want more of, or certainly HR don’t want more of: working on Sundays, staying late – that kind of thing, as you’ll just get more of it.
Give meaningful acknowledgement at least once this month for every team member – watch what happens!
In at 3,
“I want to see more leadership from you.”
Same problem as the confidence one but with extra shame attached. Leadership is a big, vague, catch-all word. No two definitions are the same. So what does this even mean? Probably something different if Bob is saying it, to when Marjorie says it. Also, it lands as ‘I’ll never be a good leader.’
If this has happened to you: leadership is something you grow, not something you roll out of bed aged 21 with a manual for. Reframe this feedback as ‘this person needed something from me at a specific moment and they didn’t get it, but they weren’t able to articulate exactly what that was.’
It doesn’t mean you’ll never be a great leader. It means that in that moment you didn’t make the same leadership choices they did.
I was once told ‘I expected to see more leadership from you’ because I wasn’t ‘visible’ enough at an event. Actually I’d taken a proactive choice to be supportive in the background at said event, in order that my team members project managing it could lead visibly, and take the limelight. You could argue that was a leadership choice and me and my director’s views on what the right one was, were just different.
If you’re a leader tempted to ask this: get clear on what you mean, and when you give the feedback make sure you make it specific to the moment you needed to see something different: a behaviour in the moment, not a general personality failing.
Which means (drum roll please) in at number two, oh so frequently reported is…..
‘You lack gravitas’
If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of this please know that it can be lazy shorthand for ‘you aren’t entering a room with the kind of self confidence of a 60 year old white man in a suit with 40 years corporate experience behind him’. If you’re younger, not a man, not white, not neurotypical, not able bodied, or simply a bit new to your line of work, you’ll probably have received different messages about how you’re supposed to enter rooms (stay small, listen and learn, don’t speak out of turn, defer to power etc.)
To my mind, those messages are not invalid, in fact they are designed to keep us safe. Acting on them – for example being quiet and listening – is a form of social awareness, as is deferring to the most powerful person in the room, and behaving accordingly, is logical. Can we question the validity of these messages? Hell yes! Can we cut ourselves some slack when we are simply responding to all the messages we’ve ever been told? Also yes.
This feedback can get in the bin. Instead reflect on: What kind of leader do I want to be? How does that version of me enter this particular room? Do I have the energy to do that today? Yes, good. No? What’s the next best thing? (I find dialling up the listening and asking a pertinent question is a good strategy for those less energised days when big energy is required.)
If you’re moved to give the gravitas feedback, please don’t. Instead, you might ask something along these lines:
How do you feel about * insert these kind of meetings * currently? How would you like to feel?
How would you like to come across in that meeting? What will help you do that? How can I help you with that?
And that’s the start of a much more helpful conversation. Feel free to then share kindly, directly, how the person is coming across currently so between you, you can work out a plan of how to close the gap.
So then no 1 has to be my least fave ever……
“You’re not very strategic…”
If I had a pound.
And yes, this old chestnut is still around.
As feedback, it’s vague, it’s slightly withering and again it’s impossible to action without understanding more about what the feedback giver thinks being strategic is. It might mean “You got into the weeds in that meeting” or “You didn’t connect this decision to the bigger picture” or something else entirely, who knows what!
It’s also one of those bits of feedback that lands with us as ‘I will never ever be strategic, I’m just not wired for it’ when actually it could easily mean ‘You didn’t answer the questions in that interview in a way that demonstrates your ability to be strategic when necessary.’
I spent a good chunk of my career believing myself to be ‘not strategic’ due to just such interview feedback when I was about 27, until a later boss laughed herself off a chair and said ‘everything you do is strategic’ and proceeded to point to several tangible examples. AH! so that’s what being strategic is, no one ever said….
If you’ve had this feedback, please seek clarification or alternative view points: What does strategic look like? When do I do that? Is there an opportunity for me to showcase or explain that a bit more – make the thinking bit of it a bit more visible?
If you’re moved to give this feedback: make it absolutely time bound and specific, not a vague personality trait – and then share what ‘being strategic’ looks like to you.
So there we go, the top 5 utterly useless bits of feedback which have blighted the lives of leaders since forever (or at least as long as I’ve been in the workplace.)
What would you add into this list?
Which of these have you been on the receiving end of? How might you reframe or learn from that?
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