How to ask your manager for feedback and get constructive criticism

Knowing how to ask your direct leaders for feedback is a skill that draws on several soft skills, such as good communication, self-assessment, empathy and active listening.

The challenge, however, is that negative feedback (or constructive feedback, as some prefer to call it) is not always comfortable to give or receive. Why is there so much taboo around this subject? How can you ask for feedback, or give negative feedback, and treat the process as part of continuous development?

In this post, you will learn the most common obstacles to this kind of exchange and what to do to avoid them.

Why is it so hard to ask for feedback?

The fear of asking for constructive feedback is the fear of hearing criticism. The fear of giving negative feedback is a common behavior, especially among young leaders. New leaders want to stay professional and avoid “compromising a good organizational culture”.

Not to mention the lack of models for giving good feedback and of tools that make performance reviews and the recording of behavioral history easier.

Part of this difficulty is rooted in how the brain reacts to rejection. In a study published in Science in 2003opens in a new tab, Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman, of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Kipling Williams, of Purdue University, observed that social exclusion activates a brain region associated with physical pain.

The research does not address feedback at work, but it helps explain why criticism can feel like rejection.

“Are you telling me I’m not good enough and I don’t belong here?”

That is a common interpretation. And since no manager wants to cause discomfort to the team or risk unwanted reactions, negative feedback ends up being postponed.

Yet without constructive feedback, people have fewer chances to grow.

In the article Your Employees Want the Negative Feedback You Hate to Giveopens in a new tab, published in Harvard Business Review, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman show that 72% of survey participants said their performance would improve if their manager gave them corrective feedback. The same article points out that many managers are reluctant to do so.

So how do you ask for constructive feedback that improves your development when no one is willing to give it?

How to ask for constructive feedback without saying so outright

If you are looking for ways to ask for feedback, try being subtler first. Here are a few tips:

1. Do a self-assessment

According to professor Adam Grant:

“When people avoid giving constructive feedback, it is often because they fear hurting your feelings. But if they hear you talk about what you did wrong, the fear goes away.”

Start by saying something like:

“I know I tend to work fast and sometimes overlook important details. I would like to improve on that. Do you have any ideas on how I could improve?”

And then, after getting the answer, you can ask:

“Is there anything else I could improve right now?”

This is a way to ask for constructive feedback without drawing too much attention.

2. See your improvement as a personal goal

Make self-improvement a personal commitment, and do not hesitate to ask for help. If asking for feedback directly is not working, tell your manager that you committed to improving in three areas this year and that you would like feedback on them.

Ask:

“Could you please help me keep the commitment I made to myself?”

This way, the perspective on feedback shifts: it becomes more about helping you keep your promise and less about hurting your feelings.

3. Reframe negative feedback as a chance to learn

If your manager, colleague or client is holding back from offering negative feedback directly, ask:

“What do you think I could learn from you?”

This gives the other person a chance to reflect on their own talents and skills (which makes people feel good) and to share their thoughts on where they could help you grow, in a non-threatening context.

If you are lucky, they may even turn the question around and ask you for constructive feedback.

4. Preventively minimize the impact of negative feedback

When people are willing to give this kind of assessment, they often believe that changing behaviors is something simple and small for the person receiving it.

You can do this yourself by asking which bad habits you can change. This shows the other person that they do not need to downplay the problem to make it pleasant for you, because you have already done that.

Managers need to have enough openness with their employees to give negative feedback. But if that is not the case where you work, learn how to ask for feedback to get important information to develop your career plan.

This content was translated and adapted from an article in Harvard Business Reviewopens in a new tab.

See more about feedback in the video below (in Portuguese):

Feedback as part of development

Asking for feedback means taking charge of your own development. Self-assessment, a personal commitment, a question about learning and preventive reduction of impact are ways to make the conversation lighter for the person asking and the person answering.

For companies, the path is the same: the easier it is to give and record feedback, the less it depends on each manager’s individual courage.