How to give a negative feedback to your line manager?

You don't give feedback to your boss.

A couple of related thrads: http://www.manager-tools.com/forums-4291       http://www.manager-tools.com/forums-4563

Managing your boss podcasts:

http://www.manager-tools.com/2006/01/managing-your-boss

http://www.manager-tools.com/2006/01/managing-your-boss-part-2

The issue of providing feedback to bosses is covered in the peer feedback model. There are *important* caveats discussed in the cast.

http://www.manager-tools.com/2006/10/the-peer-feedback-model

To quote the cast: "Discretion is the better part of valor."

Two regular MT quotes to remember:

"Tell your boss the truth and the truth shall set you free"

"You're not that smart and they're not that dumb"

Very, very shakey ground. To illustrate, imagine a situation with one of your reports doing it to you. They can't sneak it under the radar and not have you recognise it as feedback and you probably ain't going to be too impressed with their audacity

Here's another take:

I don't remember ths specific cast, but at some point Mark and Mark talked about creating a document where you write down what you would do differently when you are in the position of leadership. 

It's almost like journaling, I guess.  I've started doing it, but not on a regular basis (which is a good thing, right?). I especially like it becuase it allows me to work through the issue and possibly see where I 1) might be over-reacting, 2) discover, possibly, why the boss reacted that way, and/or  3) lay out how I would do things differently.

The advice given above it good; I would add that your reaction to your boss relies on two things: your relationship and the level of feeback you want to give (how you deliver the message).  You might be able to rephrase your response so that it doesn't sound like negative feedback.

-J

Nota bene:

Whenever I hear my boss complaining or when I have a momentary lapse where I WANT to give her feedback, I think about a scene in my favorite leadership movie, Saving Private Ryan.  I'm not sure if you've seen it, but there is a scene where the captain (Tom Hanks) and his platoon discuss, essentially, giving feed back...here's the scene:

Private Reiben: Hey, so, Captain, what about you? I mean, you don't gripe at all?
Captain 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 Miller: Well, in that case... I'd say, "This is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective, sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover... I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life and the lives of my men - especially you, Reiben - to ease her suffering."
Mellish: He's good.
Private Caparzo: I love him.

The podcast you are thinking of is "The Delta File" released in Career Tools August 28, 2009

I love that movie too.

In my role (which is an unusual role), I am expected to provide meaningful feedback to my boss, including negatives.  I have said and done things in my current role that would get me fired (have gotten me fired, in fact) from any normal organization.  I report to a board-level executive and major shareholder, and was briefed when I started on changes to the organization that I was expected to implement.  Implementing some of those changes has required my boss to change some of his behaviours - his willingness to listen is a key reason for my powerful loyalty to him, and to the organization.

One of the key things I have said to him is "Most people aren't as stupid as I am, and they won't tell you these things."  The fact that I do this stuff, and do it regularly, doesn't mean it's not stupid.

Some of the things that draw a distinction between 'stupidly dangerous' and 'simple suicide' are:

- Trustworthyness.  Give you boss any reason to doubt your motives for giving the feedback, and you are completely screwed.

- Starting a fight.  Get into a head-on fight with your boss and you will lose.  I've tried it enough times, and come close enough to victory (to the point where board members apologized to me while getting rid of me) that I know it does not matter how strong your case on your issue is, your boss is your boss and will always win a direct confrontation.

- Respect.  If you think your boss is an idiot, you cannot give feedback that will be respected - your lack of respect will destroy your attempt to do it.

- Strength of relationship.  You need a strong basic relationship with your boss, and a knowledge of their moods, the indicators that they're ready to listen, and the indicators that they've just had something else go wrong and can't handle more bad news right now.  If you're asking about when to do it on a website full of strangers, you don't know your boss well enough to get away with it.

- Have your own house in order.  If your performance, and the performance of your team, is anything less than stellar, then you've got better ways to spend your time than trying to fix someone else's problems.  Fix your own problems first.  If you genuinely can't fix your problems without a change in your boss's behaviour, then you need to demonstrate that you've done everything possible (not just everything reasonable, but much more than that) to deal with it without asking for a change.  Even so, you're better off saying "It would help me if you changed [x]" than it would be to say "I don't like it when you [x]".

You're not wrong.  But I think it would be difficult to have you as a direct.

The people who inflict the most misery on bosses are the hardworking, intelligent and dedicated people who come up with great ideas, or who are convinced that they can do the boss's job better than the boss they have.  (I know this, I've inflicted a lot of misery on bosses, and I've reaped the karmic rewards I had sown.)

Management is frightening work, it pokes at your insecurities, and every promotion leads to more uncertainty, more opportunities to become insecure and defensive.  Giving negative feedback to someone that is desperately trying to convince themselves that they're OK will make them want you to shut up, even if they're able to acknowledge that you're right.

I don't think that anything that anyone here says is going to stop you from following your ideals, and I think that's great.  There's a lot of advice out there that says that if you want to achieve exceptional success, you have to proceed as if you're not afraid to get fired.  If you have the financial resources available to you that you can afford to get fired, then I encourage you to learn the difficult art of coaching your boss.  (Start with the 'Lion Taming' book I reviewed recently.)  If you can't afford to get fired, then don't take the risk - your fear will interfere with your performance, and you'll be less likely to succeed, more likely to get fired, and more likely to suffer badly for it.

Good luck.

Okay, I'll tell my story of the one time I've given negative feedback to my boss. He was my favorite boss -- perhaps because of this event. I worry that by sharing this, others might think it's okay. Just note that this occurred back in 1990, and I haven't done it again.

My boss sent out an email asking for personal feedback. Immediately, a habit of his that I'd seen him do in most meetings came to mind. I thought about my options. I could ignore the note, or I could write back and say he was wonderful, or I could give him the advice. This was such an obvious action that if anyone ever mentioned it, he would wonder why no one ever told him before. If I just tell him he's wonderful, well, I wouldn't ever believe a note like that if I got it and I wouldn't completely trust the person that sent it to me. (So this taught me that I will never do this to a direct of mine, if I ever have any.) And I sincerely wanted to help him improve because I admired him a lot and wanted him to succeed.

As MT teaches us, always focus on behaviors, which I was able to do. And it was a behavior that could be changed, or I wouldn't have said anything. I thought about how to word it. I wouldn't have told him this in person. In fact, if I'd been asked in person, I hope I would've been fast-witted enough to say I need to think about it and then send him a note. By not addressing it in person, there wasn't that awkward moment of him having to admit to me that he was doing something ineffective or argue with me or anything else. It was easier to keep it non-confrontational and avoid the interpersonal baggage that could have come from it. I told him that I'd seen this specific behavior in many meetings and that if there were people in the meeting that didn't know him as well as I did, they might mistakenly get the impression that he wasn't paying attention.

He didn't reply to the note. He never brought it up in person. But I never saw him do that behavior again. So in very specific cases, giving your boss feedback can work. I appreciated the opportunity but really stressed over it, and he never asked again. Like I said, he was my favorite boss, and after he was promoted to another assignment, he brought me on to one of his projects.