Photo by Managing Individuals: Providing Feedback
Managing people is both challenging and rewarding. One of the key responsibilities of an engineering manager is team leadership, which includes providing guidance, mentorship, and support to the engineers on their teams. Their role is to cultivate a positive team culture that promotes collaboration, innovation, and professional development among team members.
Software development teams often use agile methodologies, where feedback plays a critical role. These methodologies integrate feedback mechanisms throughout the development process to ensure the product aligns with customer needs and to help the team continuously improves its processes. As managers, we can use similar strategies, providing regular, honest, and direct feedback. This practice can enhance team cohesion and productivity, as well as individual performance and professional growth.
Radical Candor
Radical candor is a delicate balance of directness and honesty without causing offense. It is being caring and direct, combining bluntness with empathy. By genuinely caring for our team members, building sufficient trust, and understanding them on an individual level, feedback can be seen as constructive rather than malicious. This approach helps you to be perceived as helpful rather than harsh.
When providing feedback, aim for specificity and actionability. Highlight the impact of their actions, whether positive or negative, on the company, the team, and the customer.
Provide positive feedback at the time of observation or after receiving a recognition report from a third party. After acknowledging their contributions, suggest areas for further improvement. Avoid criticizing aspects beyond their control, such as personality traits. Before presentations, provide coaching sessions, which can include practice runs and note-taking on mutually agreed focus areas, such as speech speed or excessive use of filler words like “umm”.
Ruinous Empathy
No one enjoys delivering bad news, but withholding it can cause more harm than sharing it with empathy and offering assistance. If not informed, the individual may continue making the same mistakes or lose trust when they discover you didn’t support them. Be kind, but firm. Treat them with respect and don’t withhold feedback for fear of hurting their feelings.
Manipulative Insincerity
Avoid being insincere and manipulative. Don’t sidestep issues by falsely praising an individual when you’re unwilling to provide thoughtful feedback for their improvement. If a manager neglects to critique an underperforming employee, the employee’s skills may deteriorate further, leading to an unavoidable termination.
Managing Individuals
Everyone is unique, with different family situations, goals, ambitions, and strengths. What works for one person may not work for another. It’s essential to take the time to listen and understand each person. Get to know them on a personal level, open up, and build trust. While one employee might seek rapid growth and quick ascension up the corporate ladder, another might prefer stability and gradual growth.
Career Growth
Honest feedback is crucial for individual career development. It’s important to devise growth plans for each employee, focusing on leveraging their strengths. Engage in candid conversations about their aspirations, demonstrating your personal commitment to guide them on their career path. Look for opportunities to develop the skills they’ll need for their dream job.
Provide truthful assessments about the employee’s current skills and the steps they need to take for a promotion. Give them insights into their professional growth. Together, create a strategy. Offer support and hold them accountable. Challenging your staff to excel is a characteristic of a truly caring boss.
Motivating
Ensure that your direct reports are challenged at a level that promotes motivation. If they are overly challenged, they may burn out or become frustrated, negatively impacting their performance. On the other hand, if they are not challenged enough, they may become bored and lose motivation.
Recognize that many necessary jobs can be tedious and unfulfilling. However, there is satisfaction in performing a job well. Acknowledge good work when it is done.
A job with a meaningful and noble purpose can inspire employees to perform at their best. However, it’s not your responsibility to create that sense of purpose when it doesn’t exist.
Performance Issues
Effective communication is crucial when addressing an underperforming employee. Always listen to them, as there might be underlying reasons for their poor performance. Empathize and understand their situation. Clearly specify the expectations they are not meeting. Finally, collaborate to develop an action plan for performance improvement.
Terminating Employment
Any manager will agree that terminating employees is one of the most challenging aspects of their role. This decision can significantly impact the employee’s life. They might be the primary earner for their family, and losing health benefits could have serious implications. The termination could even lead to personal issues such as marital discord. Managers often invest numerous hours in an employee’s career growth and performance improvement, so it’s disheartening to let them go. However, it’s important to remember that the affected employees may benefit from finding a job better suited to their skills.
If you’ve ever been terminated from a job, you might harbour resentment towards your former boss. However, remember that termination is generally not the desired outcome for your boss either. When letting someone go, it’s important to ensure it’s for valid reasons. Strive to aid the employee in improving their performance. Provide honest, direct feedback, highlighting specific actions they can take to improve. Refrain from personal attacks. Consider the impact a poorly-performing employee might have on overall team morale. An underperforming employee can be a demoralizing presence within a team. Consider getting an outside opinion if you have doubts.
Developing a Culture of Honest Feedback
Be a role model for open and direct feedback. Ask for specific feedback and avoid reacting defensively. Listen attentively to what others have to say. Allow them time and space to develop their ideas. Over time, they will open up and provide honest feedback. This reciprocal exchange will foster a feedback culture within the team.
Encourage your team to voice their opinions and challenge you when they disagree. Their unique perspectives and ideas are valuable, and it’s important to create an environment of psychological safety that promotes sharing. Foster healthy debate to ensure that the best ideas are put forward and agreed upon.
Collaborative Problem Solving
Practice collaborative leadership. Start by presenting the problem that needs to be solved to the team. Encourage them to share their ideas before you share yours. Discuss the pros and cons of each proposed solution. For larger teams, divide into smaller groups and then share the best solutions from each subgroup with the larger group.