careercake how to give negative feedback to senior colleagues course

Shabanas Sharafudeen Follow

Ever been in a situation where you dont quite agree with something your boss said? Maybe you feel your manager could have dealt with a situation slightly differently? There will come a time in your career when you need to provide feedback to a boss or senior colleague.

Are they the right person?

So next, is it the right time, is it the right person to give this feedback to? So you could be feeling really unhappy at the moment about the direction that your boss is taking you in. Or maybe they're micromanaging you, and every day they're checking up on you and you just feel like they don't trust you.

When Is the best time?

So now we're going to look at how quickly and when you should give this feedback. So you've decided that you're going to give the feedback to your senior and you believe that your organization has got that culture which encourages open discussions, which is fantastic.

Planning the conversation

So when you're planning any conversation where you're giving feedback I personally like to use AID. Now this is a really good structure for you to plan out the conversation.

How to deliver the message

How we deliver this feedback is going to influence how the other person feels about receiving that message. So firstly, never ever send your feedback via an email. Emails are a terrible idea. When you send an email, you can do it with all of the best intentions and it can still be read in completely the wrong tone.

What if your boss asks you for feedback?

So what if your boss or your manager has asked you for feedback? Well firstly this is epic, the fact that they know they're not perfect, they're totally into self-developing and looking at their behaviors is a great thing.

Summary

Firstly, ask yourself, is it the right person? Is it the right time? Ideally within 48 hours and you should really take some time to reflect on it first. Plan out the conversation and the structure and the way that you're going to deliver it, ideally face-to-face and if you can, one-to-one.

Why is negative feedback important?

While giving negative feedback is important one also has to understand the point of view of the receiver. What is it that preventing them from executing the tasks? If there were issues with the work, what caused it. Is it the first time that the were receiving such feedback or is it happening repeatedly. When providing feedback, it is imperative that you understand this point of view. Someone who’s been getting negative feedback regularly but not acting on it or showing no scope of improvement needs sterner communication. You can ask them what’s happening on their end and why they are not really revealing results.

Why is it important to communicate directly?

Communicating directly gives a personal touch to the conversation . It makes them feel important and you can gently explain what’s happening. Doing so helps in positive reinforcement and they would try to garner the positive criticism that comes from negative feedback.

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