Yes, You Need To Give Women Constructive Criticism Too

Picture this: You’ve been working at the same company for decades, slowly climbing your way up the ranks, believing that your coworkers and bosses like working with you.

If you’ve been working there that long they must like you, right? 

But what if all the feedback you’ve ever received has been so … diplomatically phrased and nicely packaged that you weren’t even aware that your colleagues didn’t like working with you?!

What if the 360 feedback revealed that your coworkers of 26 years had actually just been tolerating you this whole time? What if they described you as “pushy,” “stubborn” and “off putting”? What if your emails weren’t getting lost in the shuffle, but, rather, your coworkers were actively avoiding you and trying to limit the time they spent with you?

Horrible, right? For a lot of us, this is our worst professional insecurity made real.

It happened to one of my coaching clients - she spent TWENTY YEARS thinking she was good at her job and liked by her peers only to discover that she was wrong.

Her boss didn’t want to demoralize her and risk of losing her, but meanwhile nobody liked her. By not addressing these issues head-on, her management was doing her a disservice.

”All these years and nobody told me?!” she said to me during our first coaching session.

”Yes, and we’re going to deal with it and you’re going to come out even better,” I told her.

I imagine she’s just one of many women who’ve experienced this, especially in male dominated environments where retaining their female talent is a corporate goal.

Why? Because a lot of leaders give women - specifically women - feedback that’s so “nice” and watered down that the women don’t realize that they’re not actually succeeding as a colleague and they don’t understand that they need to change their behavior.

Here’s what a Harvard Business Review article says; “Even if their male and female employees perform at exactly the same level, managers tend to prioritize kindness more when giving feedback to women than when giving the same feedback to men.”

And while kindness is obviously very important, constructive feedback is necessary for anyone to grow - in their career, in their relationships, in any aspect of their life.

Constructive feedback is essential for anyone’s growth. Many managers resist providing a truly balanced review because they’re uncomfortable sharing the “tough” feedback. (If you’re not sure how to give feedback, I wrote you a script!) 

As the research shows, leaders are often more uncomfortable giving constructive criticism with their female employees and, instead, provide watered down, gentler messages to avoid hurting their female team member’s feelings. 

Women are more likely to receive inflated feedback and less likely to  receive actionable feedback than men. “Watered down feedback (even when motivated by the desire to be kind!) can end up obscuring critical growth opportunities and when these women don’t know about those growth opportunities, they won’t receive important job assignments, raises or promotions.” 

If you’re worried that your boss is sugarcoating the feedback they’re giving you, here’s what you can do:   

Let your boss know that you’re interested in continuing to develop and grow so you can deliver the highest value and continue to be considered for promotions.

A smart question to ask them is “What could I start, stop, and continue doing to contribute at a higher level?”

Or you can ask them “What can I do differently to operate at a higher level?”

And if you receive feedback you’re concerned is watered down, you can say “I appreciate your feedback. I’m wondering if there are things that I could do better. I’d like to know so I can focus on improving them.”

As well intentioned as it is, giving sterilized feedback it’s actually a huge disservice to both the  individual and the company. The truth matters!

If you’re a leader who needs help giving better feedback, I’d love to coach you!