Managerial Feedback: A Mix of Rater Biases and Unsolicited Advice
“If we believe we know what is right for the other person, we are very far from being able to provide a valuable perspective.”
Providing others with information on what we feel and need in mutual interactions is crucial. Unfortunately, providing feedback goes wrong. Managers might unintentionally humiliate others, manipulate others by using pleasing words or be taken over by their own emotions, such as aggression. This gets even worse with feedback on very soft and abstract areas, such as giving feedback to other leaders about their managerial skills.
Research¹ shows that feedback is more distortion than truth, and this is what many managers forget. Feedback is used to push opinions with no respect to whom the other person is. The truth, however, is that there is no single way of going things well, and it especially comes true in leadership roles. Feedback tells us how we should be to succeed, while this assumption cannot be more far from truth, because feedback we receive is not about us.
“The results show that when we are rated by someone, over 60% of rating is about the rater, not us.”
Who Is Qualified to Give Feedback?
No one is qualified to judge and evaluate anyone in this world. No one knows what is right for the person who receives the feedback except for the person themselves. If we believe we know what is right for the other person, we are very far from being able to provide a valuable perspective. Research has concluded that it is impossible to design a performance appraisal system free of biases.¹ These biases are formed by who we are and what traits we as human beings have.
It is called the “idiosyncratic rater effect”. This effect says we are not able to rate other human beings reliably. The results show that once we are rated by someone, over 60% of that rating is about the rater, not us.²
Recently, I was organizing a self-awareness session. We were all evaluating ourselves and were evaluated by everyone else. People of various types and roles were evaluating me differently. I believe they were more likely assigning those attributes to me that were personally important for them. I have similar experience from feedback I have received months ago where one of my colleagues questioned my role. When I invested time into researching this further, I found out that he was not satisfied with some of his agenda and he needed help with that, and I might be a good person to do so. This feedback was more about what the other person needed to feel better in their role than about me.
Also, I invest significant energy into spreading mental health awareness in my company. There are many people approaching me saying how inspiring it is for them or how I change the world by doing this. I am very grateful for these words, and it motivates me a lot! There are also people that say such activities don’t belong to the workplace or that because I share my story, I only talk about my own issues in the end. I highly respect all these views. Yet it nicely shows that these very diverse perspectives, either positive or less positive, reveal more about the rater than about me.
“Providing feedback is less important than showing that we genuinely care about the other person.”
Each of Us Needs Different Feedback
We all have heard that good feedback should be presented in front of everyone, while bad feedback in privacy. We might have also heard that feedback should be delivered rather immediately. While I believe these tips might be useful, they become absolutely useless once a person does not possess the ability to deliver the feedback well.
Besides that, every fifth person is a highly sensitive person (HSP) ³. HSPs might require the feedback to be delivered respectfully. I believe we all need the feedback to be shared that way.
I am somewhere on the scale closer to an HSP. There were situations when I received feedback that paralyzed me for days. Having a leader that pinpointed every single mistake, no matter how insignificant it was, while only provided appreciations on extreme successes, has been very challenging for me. Also, those from my manager’s perspective, big mistakes visibly irritated them and led to aggression that often lasted for days.
Receiving such feedback for longer had an inevitable outcome for me — it became demotivating for me, and I lost most of my trust for that person. However, I need to admit that from the short-term point of view, this worked — I was so humiliated by such feedback that I wanted to “correct” myself. Long term, it was only devastating. I have also found a pattern in my performance — I was performing well during times, when I had fewer interactions with my manager. I believe this is how some managers destroy the potential of their people, especially when these people are sensitive. Yet, I still think my manager was convinced they did a good job coaching me. Maybe they did. They just could not understand me.
Should we then provide feedback? I think we should provide our perspective when we are asked for it or believe it will be good for the other person. However, I think providing feedback is less important than showing that we genuinely care about the other person. If we care about the other human being, like them, accept them, provide them space, we already give them way more to help them self-actualize and realize their full potential.
“The only measurement of success of such discussions should be how useful the conversation has been for the other person.”
How to Provide Our Perspective Then?
Let’s leave the word feedback aside and talk about how to provide our perspective on things. How to make sure that we have helped the other person explore the options for progressing on their journey well.
- It all starts with our own motivation — We could stop here, really. I believe it is vital to provide our views only when we believe this perspective could be useful for the other person. Not useful in a way that the person would start doing things we want them to do, but what we believe is good for them and again just for them. It should under no circumstances be a manipulation into what we think is good. If we come with a genuine interest in the other person, it should be already enough.
- Every person is individual, and that’s what great about them — there is no set of traits or behaviors people should have. Each person is different and for each person being successful in the same role means something different. We cannot benchmark people against an ideal employee or, even worse, against us. It wouldn’t help the other person. It would do the complete opposite.
- Ask — Are you about to deliver your perspective? Stop for a moment and ask if it’s ok for the other person. We never know what the other person goes through at that moment. There might be another time more suitable for both of us.
- Limit our perspective to what we feel or need — As far as we might all believe, our opinions are great, they are usually not. Providing our perspective is just providing our view on things. It is never a description of how the situation is. For that reason, we should always link what we say to how we, and only we, perceive it. Moralizing, judging, or sharing unwanted advice only disconnects us from the other person. Communicating our feelings and needs while being aware of how limited our perceptions are does not give much space for manipulation or judgements. “I enjoyed your presentation a lot, there were quite a few things that were not clear to me before it, and now I understand it well” vs. “Your presentation was very good. You addressed and clarified all relevant topics”. While in the former case I feel I receive the other person’s perspective, the latter sounds the person has the answer to what is good or bad and what applies to everybody, which cannot be true. By expressing ouselves through feelings and needs, we can non-violently share what we perceive.
- Give the other person enough space to reflect — Ask others how they perceive things — if a person feels down after a presentation, and we just give them a pat on the back and run away, we have failed to establish a good connection. There are also people that would find it hard to react immediately, and that’s perfectly fine. HSPs might want to keep their reaction for the next session. We should respect it.
The ideal outcome is a mix of all the perceptions — ours as well as of the other person. For that reason, we might want to listen carefully and empathetically to what others have to say. Also, it might be good to ask a lot, summarize, and reflect on what we understood.
The measurement of the outcome of such discussions should be how useful the conversation has been for the other person. Not whether we passed the message or made the person believe us by pushing hard on them. The ideal outcome should be that the person sees new ways and perspectives for progressing forward on their own journey, and we have served them to be just another observer.
Providing our perspectives on other people’s behavior and actions might be a hard task for managers. However, as far as we remain aware of our own biases and limitations of our own perceptions, we can start building proper connections to others full of insightful thoughts and suggestions inspiring for both sides. Let’s not let this unique opportunity slip through our fingers.
References
[1]: Paramesh, Athmeeya Hunuganahalli and Samartha, Vishal and T.M., Rajesha and Hawaldar, Iqbal Thonse, Manifestation of Idiosyncratic Rater Effect in Employee Performance Appraisal (September 11, 2020). Problems and Perspectives in Management, 18(3), 224–232, 2020. doi:10.21511/ppm.18(3).2020.19, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3691260
[2]: Mount, M. K., Judge, T. A., Scullen, S. E., Sytsma, M. R., & Hezlett, S. A. (1998). Trait, rater and level effects in 360-degree performance ratings. Personnel Psychology, 51(3), 557–576. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1998.tb00251.x
[3]: Aron, Elaine & Aron, Arthur. (1997). Sensory-Processing Sensitivity and Its Relation to Introversion and Emotionality. Journal of personality and social psychology. 73. 345–68. 10.1037/0022–3514.73.2.345.
