Carla Miller 00:00
Welcome to the influence and impact podcast for female leaders.

My name is Carla Miller, and I'm a leadership coach who helps female leaders to tackle self doubt, become brilliant at influencing and make more impact at work. I've created this podcast to help you to become a more inspiring and impactful leader. We'll be talking about all the different topics that affect you, as a woman leading today. Think of it as personal development meets professional development. And I want to become the leadership BFF, you didn't know you were missing until now.

In this episode of the influence and impact podcast, I am talking about giving feedback. Now, this is something that lots of people struggle with. And it's really useful to have some models and tools, and to just have a bit of advice and structure around it. And I shared some of those in a recent article I did for authority magazine, and it got really good feedback. So I thought I would create it into a bit of a podcast episode for you here. So that's what we're going to talk about today. I don't have anything else exciting to share with you other than I've been really busy doing lots of in house work, we are just about to kick off a big year long Leadership Programme, I have just done the first session with King's College London have a six week in house be bolder course for men and women, it went down just as well with men in the first session on tackling impostor feelings. So that's good to know. And we're also just kicking off the cohort with the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.

So for those of you that are fundraisers, if you don't know, I do a special three month fashion of influence and impact in partnership with the CIOF. So everyone on that programme is a fundraising leader of some kind. So all really busy, but really great to be working with women so closely. I think that's exciting, except that if you have bought the book, thank you. And please, please, please leave a review for it on Amazon, or wherever you bought it, that really, really helps other women to see it and see that it would be a good use of £15 of their money. And I'm hoping it is a really, really, really good use of 15 pounds of any woman's money.

So let's chat about feedback. Now we're going to talk specifically about how as a line manager, you give feedback, because we have already done a couple of episodes on feedback from different angles. So if you are interested in how to deliver feedback to someone more senior than you, so when you're trying to manage upwards, for example, then you want to head over to episode number 25. Because that's what that episode is all about. Or if you struggle with receiving feedback that perhaps feels negative. If you find yourself reacting strongly to that, which many of us do, then head back a few episodes earlier, to the episode on receiving negative feedback, like a pro was actually episode number 21. But it may not say 21 in the title.

So number 25 does. So it's you could just work back from that. Okay, so let's kick off by talking a little bit about my experience with managing a team and giving feedback for those of you that are new listeners, because I know quite a lot of people have been reading the book and may well be discovering the podcast. I have led teams big and small for the past 25 years in organisations, large and small. And as a fundraising and marketing director, which is something I did for a very long time, I often led teams which were under resourced and had challenging targets. But these are individuals that were full of passion for the cause. And that could make giving feedback really hard because emotions were high people were giving and going above and beyond. And we were also asking a lot of people, anyone that works in and around the charity sector in and around fundraising knows that we do ask a lot of fundraisers. And one of the core things I learned from giving feedback to those teams is that creating psychological safety for your team and in your one to one relationships with your reports is the bedrock of being able to give and receive honest and direct feedback. Basically, if someone knows that you care about them and the organisation and you want to treat people well, if they feel like they were in a in a safe place where they can voice their views, and be treated well as well. Then they will be more receptive to feedback. Now we will do a specific episode on psychological safety. It's super interesting. And I know an amount about it. But before doing a specific episode on it, I'd like to do a bit more reading was couple of great books and podcasts I want to explore. So I will come back to you on that. But I do want to lay that as a foundation, if people genuinely don't feel safe in your presence, if your behaviour is erratic, if you're really nice one day and snap at them the next day, for example, or if they're in a culture where perhaps you are the loveliest line manager in the world. But there is a culture overall within the organisation, that's a blame culture, for example, they will find it really hard to receive and take on board, feedback, they may be defensive, they may try and avoid those conversations. And that is a really natural byproduct of their lived experiences. So it's always important to think about the impact that you have on others. And also be conscious that you don't know what someone's lived experience is, it could be very, very different from yours, their experiences could have taught them that encounters like difficult, challenging conversations with their line manager are not safe, it's really important to be able to read the room. And I wouldn't take any of the tips and advice that I'm sharing with you here, as absolutely written in stone, you need to be able to adapt your style to whoever it is you're talking to. And really, it needs to be a conversation.

But let's talk about why giving honest and direct feedback is essential to being an effective leader. Now I see a lot of newer managers, and I was absolutely like this, often holding back on giving feedback because it feels uncomfortable, and because they want to be liked. And feedback is how people improve. People need to know how they're doing, where they're going well where they're not going so well. And whilst it can be simple to give feedback on a piece of work, you can sit there and talk it through, it often feels tougher to give feedback on behaviour. And even when you're giving feedback on a piece of work, it's worth bearing in mind that when someone is working incredibly hard, when they invest a lot of themselves into their job, when you are feeding back on a paper that they wrote or how they dealt with a meeting or on a particular project, it might feel impersonal to you because you know that you're talking about ways in which those particular activities or that particular work could be improved. To them, it could feel very, very personable, personal because they've put a lot of themselves into it. And and those boundaries can get blurred.

So it can feel like you're being critical of them when you're being critical of their work. And so it's just worth being conscious of that, especially when you're giving feedback to people that you think might have perfectionist tendencies that are working really, really hard. I say this as someone who absolutely felt like that in the past when receiving feedback. So it's just worth bearing that in mind. Now if you find it hard to give feedback, you might find that actually, you're being much vaguer in your communication than you think you are, you may find yourself watering it down to the point where they have no idea what you're really saying. So you know what you're trying to communicate, but you have put so much softening around it and provided that bit of feedback embedded in all this other information, that they may not be getting the message at all.

Or indeed, if someone isn't performing well, you may be showering them with praise to make up for the negative thing that you're having to say to them. And again, that ends up being confusing for them. And my number one message if that's something that you struggle with is you're not serving your colleague by not giving them honest and direct feedback, you might think that you're being really kind and being really nice by doing that. But actually, it's not going to feel that way a few months down the line when they're really struggling to deliver in their role. And other people in the organisation are noticing or you're having to even put into a performance management process. And all because you felt uncomfortable having that conversation. A few months earlier, problems escalate, if they're not properly addressed. And some of you may have heard the story before, but in my first manager role I wanted to be liked and I definitely wanted to be nicer than a couple of managers that I'd had in the past. And I gave lots of praise. And when there were performance issues with an employee, I thought I'd address them but nothing changed in the employees behaviour and actually I was being so nice and so vague that she didn't take my feedback seriously. And it did result in the long term in her employment being ended. And that was a huge and painful learning point for me, I'm sure more painful for her. And I take that on myself as my responsibility. And in hindsight, honest, and direct feedback could have prevented that particular ending, or at least meant that she could see it coming. And she'd made the choice not to make those improvements was feedback handled?

Well says that you care, you care about that person's development, you care about the work that they do, you take time to help them improve because you value them. I quite like a phrase I heard recently feeding forward rather than feedback, because that sums up how positive and constructive feedback can actually be. It's not an it shouldn't be about shaming people for making mistakes. It's about learning for the future. And obviously, not all feedback is negative, we shouldn't be giving positive feedback when someone does something. Well, we want to recognise that when somebody gets a great result when someone's put in a fantastic amount of effort. When somebody's gone above and beyond for a team member, it's so important to recognise that. And even if they little look a little bit awkward and uncomfortable and shrug it off. Because many of us hate receiving positive feedback, we don't know what to do with it, it's still really, really important that you say it because at some point it will land for them. And feedback should be an ongoing process.

Now one of the trickiest parts of managing team is giving honest feedback in a way that doesn't come across as too harsh. So I wanted to share with you five suggestions about how best to give constructive criticism to an employee. Now, first of all, I would just want to say that you may be doing this in person, which I think is the best way to do it, or you may be doing it remotely. If you are doing it remotely, it will be harder to read someone's reaction. So you'll need to ask more questions about their thoughts and feelings and what's going on there. If you can possibly avoid it, please don't give feedback by email, it's much more likely to escalate the situation, because there's just too much room for misunderstanding. So if the feedback is about behaviour, rather than a piece of work, I would always encourage you to use a meeting, a video call or a phone call, if possible. If you really do have to send an email, then try and soften your language, reread the email a few times with a focus on tone, and frame it as a conversation. So I consider starting with a coaching approach. And actually, this generally works very well for feedback, asking them how they felt it went.

Okay, so back to my five tips.

First of all, ask permission before giving feedback and check that they are in a place to hear it. Because no one wants to be suddenly blindsided by a list of things that they've done wrong. So let someone know that you would like to debrief a situation to discuss it, or provide some feedback and ask if they're open to that, and then agree a time that you can do it. And be sure to explain the purpose of feedback to so that they understand the context and what you're trying to achieve by giving it.

Secondly, check your own bias. So, you know, we talk about gender bias a lot. But we all have unconscious bias and our expectations of people may be shaped by that. And in fact they probably are. So for example, black women are often labelled as aggressive for the same behaviours that white women received no negative feedback on. So we need to make sure that the feedback we give is fair, and not based on our own privilege. So for example, as a white male, it may be easier to speak up in meetings, and it would be for the only woman or the only person of colour in a room and not feeling a sense of belonging makes it harder to raise challenging points. Now, if you're not aware of that, then you would just say, Well, you just need to speak up more, when actually that should be a conversation about what holds you back from speaking up how what can I do to make you more comfortable speaking up? How can I create space for you to have a voice in that meeting. So there may be privilege that you have. That means that you are not seeing how hard something is for someone else, and their lived experiences are different from yours. So even just starting from that place of not assuming that you have the same lived experiences, not assuming that what you find easy or hard is the same as what they find easy or hard.

Now the third tip about feedback is to be as specific as you can. And in fact, women are often given more vague feedback such as you need to be more confident was men are given more specific and actionable feedback that prepares them for leadership. So instead of saying you need to be more confident, it would be much more useful to describe what confident would look like in that situation. For example, saying you can raise challenging or dissenting points, we value your input, or I would have loved to have heard your viewpoint on that particular point. Whatever you're doing in terms of providing feedback, you want to make sure that it is really clear and specific. And there's a really simple tool that I share, which can work effectively for that. Now, this tool works really well when you're giving feedback on someone's behaviour. So it's the behaviour consequence, action module. And I have no idea who to credit on this, because I can't really find it online. But I learned it on an assertiveness training course I went on when I was about 25. So I did not come up with this myself. But first of all, you talk about the behaviour, which is causing issues. And then the consequence, you talk about why it isn't helpful. Why are you bothering to give feedback on this? Why is this a problem. And then the action is this is how I would like you to act instead. For example, behaviour, you've been consistently arriving late for online meetings over the past month, consequence, this holds up the meeting, which impacts the other people in the room. And it's not a good use of everybody's time. Action, I'd like you to arrive on time for meetings going forward. Now, I like this tool, because often when people give feedback, they forget to cover one of those points. And either the recipient walks away not sure exactly what they've done wrong, which can make them feel very unsafe, or they don't understand why it's even an issue which can lead to accusations of bullying. Or it isn't clear how they could or should do it differently, which can then make them feel demotivated because they don't know what action they can take. So it's a really simple tool to help you remember that you have communicated the basics, now is their attitude and work is generally good, then you can put that feedback in context by setting the scene and then highlight good behaviour and performance when you see it as well. So you might start by saying generally, I'm really pleased with how you're performing, and then give a couple of specific examples. And then you can say, but there is one area that's causing some concern, which I'd like to talk through with you. On the other hand, if they genuinely need a bit of motivation to improve, then you need to make sure your feedback doesn't get lost amongst all the vague praise that you don't really mean. So you might want to start by saying, I'd like to talk about areas for improvement in your performance, so that they immediately understand that this is a serious conversation. Because if they don't understand that, then they may not make the changes that could turn around their performance. They won't thank you for that later when you're not confirming them in post or performance managing them. So I once heard a bit of leadership wisdom, I can't remember where I heard it from now, that basically said, your ability to lead successfully depends on your willingness to have the uncomfortable conversations. And that really, really rings true with me, whether that's as a line manager, or just day to day in meetings, being prepared to actually name the issues that are in the room. And work towards a solution for them is a real sign of being able to lead and these cold feedback conversations where you are having to tell someone to improve their performance because it's generally not going well. They are uncomfortable. They're uncomfortable for you. They're uncomfortable for them. But actually, you want them to feel a bit uncomfortable. You never want someone to feel shamed. That is definitely not a route that you want to go down. But you want them to think Oh, I better get that work done before I go into that meeting. Otherwise, we're going to have a really uncomfortable conversation. It shouldn't feel comfortable and relaxed and easygoing, when someone is telling you that your work is not up to standard consistently. So it's just worth thinking about what tone do I want to have in this conversation? And that will completely depend on the individual and also their performance.

Now the final and I think actually the most important point on giving feedback is actually about listening. So feedback absolutely should be a two way conversation. I think I've already said that more than Once but I want to drill it in. In fact, you might even want to start by asking them how they felt it went because a coaching approach where rather than thinking you have all the answers, instead, you ask great questions to help them reflect on their performance themselves, can be a fantastic way to give feedback. Now, if you really do need to give them some direct feedback, well, then you can take a coaching approach afterwards. So once you've made your point, clearly ask them what their thoughts are. What do you think about that? What are your thoughts on that, and listen with an open mind and help them to problem solve? Now, it's also worth bearing in mind that at least a third of us are reflective thinkers. And if you ask them what their thoughts are at the time, you may get a very different answer in two days time. So if you know that someone is a reflective thinker, then you can build that into the conversation, you can say, Would you like to talk about that now? Or would you like a little bit time to reflect and come back and have a conversation about it, because I know that you like to think things through, and you might want to problem solve with them.

But be sure to check in as they're leaving the conversation that you have the same expectations going forward as they do, and that they feel like either the conversation is, has come to a close and is resolved or you have agreed when you're going to come back and discuss it. And I think that listening point is really important, because you might be really clear on what you think has happened. But you're also looking at it from your perspective. So there is always the possibility that from another perspective, actually, what they did was completely reasonable or was the right thing or based on the knowledge that they had at the time. That made sense. And so it is worth listening. And people might go into defensive mode, because I think that's a very human thing to do. But try and not get triggered by that not react to that try and stay in that kind of respond rather than react, place and create a space for them to share. Because they might share actually, there's something going on at home that's affected their performance, they might share that they're consistently not getting the information they need from you to be able to do their job. Well. I mean, yeah, they might share that actually, you're part of the problem. And if you are, there's something you want to know about, not something you want to be forever in denial of, they might share that their expectations were different from yours, or their understanding of what needed to be done was different from yours, or they might share that they just had a really bad day, and they feel awful about it, or that they just didn't think it was a big deal at all. And now they know that actually, it's quite important to get that right, going forward.

This is why doing an episode on feedback is hard, because there are so many different scenarios. But I think as you're listening to this, you might be thinking about it as a line manager, which is how I've kind of couch the episode. But also, you might start to understand perhaps some of your reactions or responses when you're the recipient of feedback. Now, the other thing is to think about the timing of that feedback. So should it be immediately after an incident? Should it be at a different time? Should it be at set intervals? I think that feedback on a particular incident needs to be timely. But that should be balanced with allowing any strong emotions to pass. Because if you're feeling annoyed, or your colleague is spiralling because they know they've made a mistake, then you are unlikely to deliver feedback effectively, and they will be unlikely to hear it. And the point of giving feedback is always about developing someone in their role enabling them to do their job.

Well, the point of giving feedback is not for you to let off anger and frustration, you may be feeling about something that's gone wrong, that reflected on you in some way. Leadership is what your team does, reflecting on you. That's just part of it. And that's just something we have to suck up. So you should never be giving feedback in anger. If you are feeling angry now is not the time to give feedback. If you are feeling frustration, or socially acceptable version of anger, that is not the time to give feedback either. You want to make sure that your emotions are in equilibrium. And then ask your colleague when would be a good time to provide some feedback, then make yourself available. Don't do that thing of saying I've got some feedback for you. And they're not actually delivering it for a week. Meanwhile, they're keeping themselves up at night worrying about it for the next week. Because if they know there's an issue and they have to wait days to find out more, they will worry about it. So just agree at the soonest time that you can it's convenient for both of you to have that conversation and make that a priority to create the space for that.

Now ideally you want to create a growth mindset coach During your team where you're regularly giving feedback that helps people to develop and celebrates their strength, you also want failure and mistakes to be seen as a positive part of continuous improvement we learn through mistakes, failure gives us more information. And you can build this into your regular catch ups, and make it a two way process. It should never be that you are delivering feedback all the time, and you're never receiving any feedback from the people that work for you.

So seek feedback from your team on how you can better support them. Modelling and receiving feedback is a really powerful way to lead. Ask questions like what do I do that makes your job harder? What do you need from me. And like I said earlier, listen with an open mind. And don't be defensive. And don't gaslight, the other person. So recognise that their experiences are real, then you can take that and learn from it and adapt your behaviour to create an environment where everyone can thrive. So that's it from me on feedback. So just to summarise those five tips, ask for permission before giving feedback and check that they're in a place to hear it. Check your own bias. Be as specific as you can use the behaviour consequence action model where appropriate, and make sure that you're listening and that feedback is a two way conversation. I hope you've picked up a couple of handy tips from this. If you have do let me know on LinkedIn or by email. But that is it for me. So I shall leave you to go and have a great week. Take care if you've listened to the podcast and you want to know more about how we can work together, here are a few places you can look.

First of all, I've got a couple more freebies. I've got a free PDF on increasing your leadership impact at work, and I've also got a free masterclass on becoming a more influential leader without letting self doubt hold you back. So head on over to the website to book yourself a place on the masterclass or to download that PDF.

There are my open programmes influence and impact for women at management and leadership level and be bolder a four week live assertiveness and confidence course for women at any level. You can preorder my book closing the influence gap, a practical guide for women leaders who want to be heard. You can also work with me one to one particularly if you're a senior leader, and you can hire me to work in house to do talks for awareness weeks, one of workshops, a series of workshops or to run my influence and impact programme or be bolder programme in house as a women's leadership or women's empowerment offering. If you want to talk about any of those on my website, you can drop me an email or you can also book a quick 15 minute chat so we can talk about what you need and how I might be able to help you or your organisation so I look forward to chatting to you. Take care