> If you don’t speak up, you’re robbing your organization of your good insights.
No you're not. If your organization does not giving feedback easy, and safe, they're the ones who have failed. You don't owe them anything.
How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
51–60 of 346 posts
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#52Astonishing. Completely backwards. This article describes how to give feedback to your subordinates, not to your superiors. If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start poli…
It would be wonderful if the world could accept blunt feedback. It is certainly easier to give and more in-line with what most technical people would prefer. However, we work with humans, and we have learned an awful lot about how humans respond to language, especially criticism. The advice here applies to giving feedback to any human , not just superiors. As you spend time working with humans, you learn, perhaps slo…
Definitively agree. Being blunt, too direct is just the opposite of a good and effective communication.
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#53Astonishing. Completely backwards. This article describes how to give feedback to your subordinates, not to your superiors. If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start poli…
That’s nice in theory. In practice, the likelihood of you working for someone who’s unable to process the truth and will shoot the messenger is very high
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#54- ChatGPT, give me a few ideas on xxx
- These are a few points for you to use
Write an article with that. Get mentioned on HN.
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#55Another tactic I like to use is a riff on the authors suggestion #3: “Is there a reason you did (or did not do) X?” This works because it’s framed as accepting the decision and being genuinely curious about the rationale. Often the answer is: no, I never really gave it any thought. Other times there turns out to be a good reason that didn’t occur to me and it turns into a learning experience for me. Another tactic th…
Depends on the profile, when somebody talks to me like that I immediately cringe in my head and lose all respect for the person. Probably a matter of culture too.
This seems like a very shallow way of thinking. "Losing all respect for the person" implies that you think this is NEVER an appropriate way to address someone. Phrasing a disagreement of opinion as a question of reasoning is often the best course of action.
In particular if a choice has been made and going back to reverse it has significant costs, it is important to not say anything like "We should not be doing this" or "You made a mistake." Unless there is a good of action to reverse course that is simply being rude for no reason. Even in the case where there is a good way to reverse a decision, I would rather ask for the reasoning that led to the decision than strongly state the decision is wrong. If I am working with someone I respect at all, I must entertain the thought that I am wrong and they made the right decision with good reasoning.
What would you say to a superior who made a decision that you disagree with, but don't think is worth reversing? My best guess is either nothing or something that more strongly asserts your belief, but I can't think of any better option than phrasing it as a question.
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#56Astonishing. Completely backwards. This article describes how to give feedback to your subordinates, not to your superiors. If your superiors are unable to process no-fluff information, regardless of whether it's feedback or updates, they have no business lording over anyone and will sink whatever function they have oversight of. If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start poli…
If you've honestly never seen the types of leaders envisioned in this article you are very lucky indeed.
For a large majority of supervisors, if you give them carefully-worded, polite, respectful, private, accurate, truthful, ego-preserving feedback about something they're doing wrong, their response will range between "immediate firing" and "hold a grudge against you, fire you as soon as they can find a replacement". There is nothing that makes people as angry as accurately pointing out their flaws.
The way around this is in essence to get the leader to think it was their idea to make a change, which is possible in some cases but not in others.
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just like there are plenty of employed, bad devs there are employed, bad leaders/managers. Maybe they aren’t good at it, or maybe they’re new to managing and this is one skill where they will get better.
I'm thinking maybe we should be more careful in general with who we give these kinds of responsibilities to.
People can grow into their roles. You don’t expect junior devs to know everything one day one, so why would you expect a “junior[1]” manager?
[1] I know the article is about senior managers, but it reads as though the mean “somebody more senior than me” and not “somebody who has been managing a long time”
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#58Another tactic I like to use is a riff on the authors suggestion #3: “Is there a reason you did (or did not do) X?” This works because it’s framed as accepting the decision and being genuinely curious about the rationale. Often the answer is: no, I never really gave it any thought. Other times there turns out to be a good reason that didn’t occur to me and it turns into a learning experience for me. Another tactic th…
In my experience, those phrases are more often used to disguise the real intent: "you are doing it wrong and I can't stand it".
I think the best feedback comes from people who have tried to understand the reasons other people have, before asking "is there a reason ...?".
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#59One of the most annoying things in companies is how criticism only flows downwards and praise usually only only flows upwards.
Re: How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
#60Captain Miller: "I don't gripe to you, Reiben. I'm a captain. There's a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, so on, so on, and so on. I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you. You should know that as a Ranger." Private Reiben: "I'm sorry, sir, but uh... let's say you weren't a captain, or maybe I was a major. What would you say then?" Captain…
I don’t get it. He said gripe to his superior but he is basically kissing ass?