You CAN Handle the Truth: How Getting and Receiving Feedback Increases Your Impact as General Counsel

Getting and receiving feedback can be one of the most stressful aspects of your role as a leader. We senior lawyers often dread hearing constructive criticism of our performance; as high achievers, we hate to hear that we have fallen short in any way. And giving feedback to your team or peers can be equally difficult; we don’t want to offend or demotivate someone. So, we either skip the opportunity to provide feedback or we water down our commentary so much that the recipient doesn’t get the message we are attempting to send.

Thus, reviews can serve as a key tool that you can use to improve your performance.

Getting reviewed. In order to ensure that you reap the benefits of feedback that your manager or leader wants to deliver, there are a few considerations to bear in mind:

• Don’t avoid your review! It’s unfortunately easy to duck out on scheduling your review. The annual review period is hectic. Chances are your CEO is meeting with each member of his or her management team and scheduling those sessions in between all the customer meetings and other parts of his or her very busy schedule. If your session gets cancelled or never calendared, no one may remember to reschedule. This may seem like a good idea (since you hate reviews), but this is a big miss for your personal development. So, make sure that you get on the CEO’s calendar with a slot that allows for a good discussion. 
• 360-degree review or not? If your company requires a 360-degree review of leaders, then you will get to hear what your direct reports think of your performance, as well as what your CEO is thinking. However, if your company does not have this practice, consider asking your HR leader to put one together for you. Hearing what is going well—and what can be improved—in your role as a manager is invaluable input. Assuring your direct reports that their feedback will be truly anonymous (and that they will not put their careers in jeopardy by being honest) creates a culture of transparency and openness that is a hallmark of high-performing teams. 
• Listen equally to all the information being delivered. Great lawyers have to learn how to be great business executives, and there is an unavoidable learning curve. In any review, there will be positives (hopefully a lot of them!) and some suggestions for improvement. Overachieving GCs often make the mistake of dismissing the positive feedback (“of course, I am good at A,B,C”), while overemphasizing the criticism. This “negative first” mindset is a dead end; when you focus on the criticism without hearing what you excel at, your discussion with your CEO will be unintentionally limited. Ideally, your review will give you a chance to talk about your entire performance and how you can up your game to more meaningfully contribute to the company’s growth. One caveat worth mentioning: If you feel overwhelmed by the feedback you receive, take some time to digest it and schedule a follow up with your CEO so that you can understand what actions you might take to put your performance on a better path. 
• A good review is a dialogue, not a monologue. In your review, you will, of course, be listening carefully to the feedback your CEO is giving you. But it is also a chance for you to speak honestly about your career goals and ambitions. One-on-one sessions just between you and the CEO are hard to come by, so make the most of this uninterrupted slot. Let your CEO know what you want for yourself and ask how you can achieve your ambitions at the company. CEOs want a high-performing executive team, and your desire to be as impactful as possible in the company’s growth is a very positive signal to your CEO. He or she will be happy to engage in that discussion, and in the best case, you and your CEO will understand each other better after an honest talk. This will open the way for more dialogue going forward, which is a great thing for your career. 

Reviewing your team members. Reviews can be a burden to do—they take so long to prepare and you are very busy! Adding to the burden may be the fact that you hate having to give constructive criticism to your direct reports. But reviews of your staff are essential to creating and maintaining a high-performing team, so giving frequent, honest feedback will make you and your teammates work more effectively:

• Give feedback frequently—and make it timely. Giving feedback once per year in a scheduled setting deprives you and your direct report of the benefit of immediate feedback that will allow the person to course correct if necessary. Share your feedback as work progresses or when a project reaches completion. The immediacy of the conversation makes the feedback relevant and useful to you and the recipient.
• Deliver criticism clearly and in a straightforward manner. Get your message straight before speaking to your direct report. Open, honest and direct feedback should be clearly understandable so that the person can act on the feedback. Don’t dampen hard feedback by hiding it in a “compliment sandwich.” People know when you are diluting a hard message. Just say what needs to be said and give the person an opportunity to talk about that feedback—either on the spot or after the person has had time to digest it.
• Treat male and female direct reports the same. Research shows that male supervisors often avoid giving hard feedback or constructive criticism to their female reports for fear that they will upset the recipient. This kind of treatment may feel like kindness, but it is actually corrosive for your team. Everyone needs feedback, and soft pedaling a message doesn’t do you or the recipient any good. Trust me, the women on your team can handle whatever it is you have to say.

You want to be the best leader possible, and reviews are an invaluable learning tool for you, both as a member of CEO staff and as the head of a high-performing team. Mastering the practice of giving and receiving feedback in a straightforward manner, in a setting that allows the listener time to absorb your message, is a key ingredient to stellar leadership. So, stop avoiding these discussions and embrace the opportunity to learn and grow, both for yourself and your team members.