Getting a job is half the battle. Keeping it is other half. When you’re an entry- level employee you’re evaluated on what you’re able to produce. If you’re accurate, effective, and efficient and demonstrate a proactive desire to achieve more, it’s likely you’ll be awarded more responsibility. As you advance it’s also likely that you’ll be expected to transition from being hands-on and tactical to becoming hands-off and strategic (a transition, that for some, is easier said than done). You’ll be asked to lead initiatives and manage projects. And you’ll be expected to supervise others by encouraging, training, and developing them to do the work you used to do.
Your employees’ ability to succeed, or their failure to achieve, becomes your responsibility. You are accountable to them and for them. No easy task.
Because of that, it’s essential that you organize logically, delegate appropriately, communicate clearly, and confront problems directly, with courage, compassion, and integrity. It is in the arena of “confront directly with courage, compassion, and integrity” that many supervisors needlessly falter or fail. If they don’t know how to deliver bad news, they do it badly or don’t do it at all. No one wants to be blindsided; employee, supervisor, boss. When issues aren’t addressed, everyone is affected.
Politically savvy employees read the company culture and play by its rules. If the culture promotes team play and personal accountability, drives quality and profitability, rewards candor and support; it believes in giving and receiving feedback. If it’s a culture that only gives lip service to the above, employees are less apt to confront and if/ when they do, the result can be more damaging than constructive.
If you want to give feedback, and have it accepted, you have to develop and maintain a mutually trusting and supportive environment. You need to be as open to receiving it as you are prepared to give it. You’ll have to be unambiguous in what you say, appropriate in your timing, and constructive in your approach.
As foundational as those concepts might appear, they are too often forgotten, ignored, or inconsistently observed. The subsequent break down of basic communication compounds errors, short circuits energy, and disrupts productivity.
Perceptive, well-conceived feedback does not describe a point in time but describes actions and consequences that occur over time. Positive feedback describes past behaviors that have resulted in productive and effective outcomes. Negative feedback describes past behaviors that have created inappropriate or inadequate outcomes. Negative feedback becomes constructive when it encourages the receiver to not only describe specific obstacles to success, but to develop practical, actionable ways to overcome those obstacles.
It takes time to prepare for and conduct a feedback session. It takes honesty, compassion, and courage to address issues as you perceive them to be. It takes patience to realize that there’s more to the story than you can possibly know, and so, you’ll have to ask.
“Tammy, I’m concerned about our prospects of the XYZ project. I have sent you several memos, over the past 2 months, specifically requesting status reports regarding time, cost, and feasibility. To date, I have not received any information that I have requested. I have received several emailed assurances from you, indicating that you were working on my requests. When we meet next Tuesday I want to address these delays, understand the obstacles that you are encountering, and review your action plan for resolving them.”
If you want to solve the problem, you need to know what it is. Ask open-ended questions, and listen to what you hear. If you understand the problem from the employee’s perspective, you will be more successful in finding answers. Once you’ve arrived at a mutual understanding of issues, obstacles, and acceptable solutions, establish a schedule of follow on meetings that enable you to track commitment as well as progress, address set backs, and evaluate solutions that are and are not working.
As you evaluate competencies and prepare to give feedback, assess the match. Are the employees well suited to the requirements of the job? Without intending, you may have removed talented, hardworking people from what they do best and promoted them to what they do least well. Reassignment can result in realignment and subsequent success.
