How to give human-centered feedback

Why are employees expected to "sit there and take it" while a manager lays into them about everything they've done wrong? No conversation, no response, no emotion. Anything other than complete silence and stoicism is perceived as combative. Especially when the receiver is a woman.

Last week, I polled LinkedIn with a hunch about who gets #feedback on how they receive feedback. 79% of folks said they had been on the receiving end of this Feedback Inception. Only 20% of them were men. Now, this is a tiny poll just within my network. But still. My gut is telling me women are policed this way more than men.

What I could find supports my gut. Research from Kieran Snyder shows the bias in feedback is real. It's not in our heads, ladies! Overall, women get more critical feedback than men (nearly 88% compared to nearly 59%). And, it's less constructive or actionable. Women get 22% more personality feedback than men. We're more likely to be called "abrasive," to be told to watch our tone.

Are we really all taking feedback the wrong way, or are our expectations of how feedback is supposed to work just unrealistic?

We're all adults now

I remember being scolded growing up. Usually for something small like forgetting to do chores (I was generally a good kid). I remember the height of disrespect was talking back, or in any way trying provide an explanation. I remember I wanted to say that it wasn't intentional; other things had just gotten in the way. And mostly, I remember the shame of not being allowed to speak for myself.

We're all adults now, but it seems like corporate expectations of giving feedback still goes a lot like a child getting told "You messed up, and I don't want any excuses."

Today, I'm sharing four easy ways for leaders to deliver human-centered feedback to adults (women and men alike).

1. Give them a heads up

Feedback should rarely come as a surprise in the corporate world. Down with drive-by criticism. We're not dealing with life or death here where on-the-spot correction is absolutely necessary.

Particularly if you've put systems in place to build a culture where two-way dialogue is norm, feedback is just part of the regular rhythm of business. When employees can expect to give and receive feedback, and inspect their work for lessons learned and best practices, it alleviates the anxiety of looking over your shoulder for the Blame Boogeyman.

Here are the systems I've seen work best:

1. An annual review and feedback process where employees give and receive feedback from peers, managers, key stakeholders. The feedback is reviewed first for inappropriate outliers and shared by the manager at a dedicated 1:1. The discussion is forward-looking and collaborative.
2. Build reflection into project management. Employees should expect a key milestone in their programs will be a stakeholder review to look back at what went well and what they'd change going forward.
3. Manager 1:1s are a great opportunity each week to share feedback and course correct as we go. It's also where we can build the psychological safety with our team so that when we point out opportunities to improve, it's not perceived as an attack from left field.

2. Invite them to share how they think they did

I don't know about you, but I'm my own worst critic.

Nine times out of 10, when I'm shown the error of my ways, it's already something I've lost sleep over. You're likely already beating a very tired horse. A trick I learned from an amazing manager when talking about something that could have gone better -- ask them first.

How do you think that went?

This way, you're giving your employee control over the narrative, an opportunity to share where they think things may have gone awry, and you can skip over the parts everyone already agrees on. You're already on your way to a productive conversation about how to work through things together.

3. Don't hold their emotions (or facial expression) against them

Women have shared with me that they've been told they need to control their faces when taking in feedback. That they've been held back in their careers because of it. I share this experience, unfortunately.

During one annual review, my manager shared that one of the reasons I wouldn't be promoted that year was because I needed to better control my emotions. I'm not prone to throwing tantrums at the office so I asked for an example. They said my face gives me away; they always knew when I disagreed.

Mmmkay. And?

On a good day, I have Resting B*tch Face! Add deep thought, and yes, disagreement, and my face is gonna do what my face is gonna do. (Hello, neurodivergence.)

I'm an adult. Even if my face doesn't look super pleasant, I'm not going to scream at you or be argumentative. What matters more? How you interpret my expression, or what I say and do?

Employees are not robots. We shouldn't expect them to just sit there stone-faced while we list their short-comings at them. Here's what you can do instead if you see a team member is distressed by some of the feedback you're sharing. Ask:

I can see that doesn't sit right with you. Can you walk me through which part doesn't resonate with you?

This creates an opportunity for discussion, builds trust and cooperation, and eliminates the shame of being told to hold your tongue.

4. Partner on a way forward

If feedback is simply a tool to share disappointment and disagreement. Then cool, I guess keep doing what you're doing.

If feedback is a tool to work together to build something better, do something different next time, then use it as an opportunity to communicate, connect, and move forward in a way that makes everyone shine.

Employees shouldn't be in it alone. How can you remove blockers, help them reprioritize, and support them to improve as they go? Feedback between employee and manager shouldn't be a one-way deluge that only happens when something catastrophic happens. It's an ongoing conversation throughout the employee lifecycle between two humans.

Let's make feedback suck less with systems, empathy, and dialogue.

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