In Brene Brown’s newest book, Dare to Lead, she identifies challenges that exist in leadership across diverse organizations.

The following quote resonated:

We avoid tough conversations, including giving honest, productive feedback. Some leaders attributed this to a lack of courage, others to a lack of skills, and, shockingly, more than half talked about a cultural norm of “nice and polite” that’s leveraged as an excuse to avoid tough conversations. Whatever the reason, there was saturation across the data that the consequence is a lack of clarity, diminishing trust and engagement, and an increase in problematic behavior, including passive-aggressive behavior, talking behind people’s backs, pervasive back-channel communication (or “the meeting after the meeting”), gossip, and the “dirty yes” (when I say yes to your face and then no behind your back).

This reminded me of The Mirage, a report from the TNTP which found that despite the investment in professional development and ample evaluation, “school systems are not helping teachers understand how to improve—or even that they have room to improve at all.” I would argue that although this report focuses on teachers, you would likely find the same about feedback to administrators and students.

Some people tend to avoid conflict and addressing areas for improvement because those kinds of conversations are uncomfortable. But as both Brene Brown and the TNTP report alluded to, this often leads to more shame and blame than learning and growth.  These behaviors and may negatively impact learning and leads to confusion about how and what to improve. And unfortunately, when issues are left unaddressed, our students are the ones who suffer.

I am writing this as more of a reflection and push for my own growth and leadership as much as anyone reading this. As I reflect on the best systems that I have been a part of it is clear that the greatest educators let people know they care and are willing to have tough conversations to help people understand the truth about their performance so they can become better.  I don’t care how old or how successful you are, getting negative feedback, a poor performance review, or a page full of edits doesn’t feel good. But just because it is hard doesn’t mean we should avoid critique, because it’s valuable to the learning process.

3 Tips for  Providing Courageous Feedback

1. Shared Vision I think courage is critical to have these conversations and provide effective feedback but I also find that too often we jump right into the action that fails to establish the vision and goals for individuals. When we lack coherence and clarity in our shared goals holding one another accountable and giving effective feedback become very challenging.
2. High Expectations and High Support I love this push from Steve Jobs: “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” As we seek to help others improve by demonstrating our genuine care and willingness to be forthright, we have high expectations to achieve our visions but that has to be matched with specific feedback and high levels of support to get people there.
3. Focus on the individual We know that people only care what you know when they know you care. Actionable feedback that can be heard and acted upon often requires a relationship. Investing the time and energy to get to know people and to understand their strengths, goals, and aspirations is critical to supporting growth and development.

It’s both possible and necessary to value individuals and their efforts while also addressing skills and behaviors that need improvement. If you celebrate success and reflect on growth often, you can more easily address challenges in the spirit of improvement when people make mistakes or haven’t quite reached the desired level of proficiency. This is also much more effective if you have regular opportunities and structures for feedback to address challenges and it is clear that it is an opportunity to learn rather than simply about a final grade for evaluation. When we raise our expectations and create conditions where learners feel valued, supported, and expected to achieve, they will often go above and beyond.