I remember being nervous before one of my first performance reviews.
I mentioned it to a more senior colleague whose opinion I valued and she told me there was no reason to be nervous.
“There shouldn’t be any surprises,” she said. “You already know what you need to work on.”
I’ve never forgotten it.
A performance review shouldn’t be the first time someone learns that their manager has concerns about their performance. Feedback should be shared regularly so people expect it and can work on improving.
But even when feedback isn’t a surprise, that doesn’t mean we’ll agree with it.
And that’s where things can get difficult.
Insight: You don't have to agree with feedback to learn from it
Imagine your manager tells you that you can be defensive when receiving feedback.
You’re surprised. That isn’t how you see yourself.
You ask for examples and your manager points to a couple of occasions when you responded to feedback by explaining why you had approached something the way you did.
You remember those conversations differently. You weren’t being defensive. You were providing context that you thought was important. So you explain that.
Your manager responds, “This is what I mean. I’m giving you feedback and your first instinct is to explain why my interpretation is wrong.”
Now what?
It’s tempting to focus on whether the feedback is fair. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.
But there is another question worth asking: What is my manager seeing that I’m not?
Asking the question doesn’t require you to accept someone else’s interpretation of you as fact. It means recognizing that their experience of your behaviour may be different from your intention.
You intended to provide context. They experienced it as defensiveness. Both things can be true. And once you know that, you have something you can work with.
The other side of the conversation
There’s another lesson here for managers.
If someone is genuinely surprised by important feedback, ask yourself why. Have you raised it before? Have you been specific enough that they understood there was a problem? Have you given them an opportunity to work on it?
And remember that disagreement doesn’t necessarily mean someone is unwilling to hear the feedback. Sometimes people need to ask questions or have time to process something that doesn’t match how they see themselves.
A good feedback conversation should leave room for that.
Roundtable scenario: When she didn’t feel heard by her manager
Here’s a scenario we explore in The Present Leader Roundtables:
A manager had been on a team for a little more than two years and had a good relationship with her manager. But over time, she had started to become frustrated.
In meetings, she felt like her ideas were rarely acted on. When she challenged recommendations, her manager often chose a different direction. On several occasions, she raised concerns about decisions the team was making, only to be told the decision had already been made and it was time to move forward.
Eventually, she started contributing less. She didn’t see the point when she felt like her perspective wasn’t being heard.
In a one-on-one with her manager, she decided to raise it. She explained that she sometimes wondered whether her perspective was valued.
Her manager seemed surprised. She told her she valued her contribution and pointed to several projects she had trusted her to lead. But she also gave her some feedback:
“I think sometimes you take disagreement too personally. I’m happy to hear different perspectives, but we can’t debate every decision until everyone agrees.”
She left the meeting feeling worse than when she went in. She didn’t agree with her manager’s assessment. From her perspective, she wasn’t taking the disagreement personally. She was trying to make sure the team made good decisions.
It’s the kind of situation that can look different depending on where you’re sitting. Was her manager giving her useful feedback, or dismissing a legitimate concern? Was there some truth in both perspectives? What would you have done in her position?
These are the kinds of questions we explore in The Present Leader Roundtables.
In the moment: Get curious before you respond
When you receive feedback that doesn’t feel fair, resist the urge to immediately explain your perspective. Your job is to understand what the other person is seeing.
Instead, ask:
• Can you give me an example?
• What would you have wanted me to do differently?
• What would you need to see from me going forward?
Then listen. You can decide what you think about the feedback later.
Those questions turn a judgment about who you are into information about behaviour you can choose to change or examine.
Sometimes the feedback will be wrong. And sometimes the hardest feedback to hear is the feedback we most need to consider.
You can’t control someone else's perception of you. You can control what you do with the information you've received.
Question to Sit With This Week:
If you're a manager, remember what it feels like to receive feedback that doesn't match your own perception. Are you giving people room to understand, question and discuss your feedback, or are you interpreting any disagreement as resistance?
Got a leadership challenge? Email me at [email protected] and I’ll tackle it in a future issue of The Present Leader.