Leading a team
How to give feedback to your boss
Ask for time, pick one issue and describe it with facts: what happens and how it affects your work or the team. Suggest what could help and ask how your manager sees it. Upward feedback works when it sounds like a shared problem to solve, not a verdict.
How to handle this conversation
Ask for permission
“You said you want to know what we could do better. Can I share one observation about our meetings?”
One issue, specific examples
For example: “In the last month priorities changed three times in the middle of a sprint, and we had to restart two tasks.”
Talk about effects, not intentions
Instead of “you do not care about planning,” say what happens in the team: overtime, frustration, missed deadlines.
Bring a proposal
“Could we agree on priority changes once a week, at the Monday meeting?” A proposal gives your boss something to say yes to.
I give feedback to my boss
- Difficulty
- Medium to hard
- Duration
- 10-12 minutes
The situation
Your manager often changes priorities mid-work, and the team loses time on tasks that later get thrown away. At the last meeting they encouraged honest feedback. You ask for half an hour one to one.
Who you talk to
Your manager
Says they are open and genuinely wants to be a good boss, but takes criticism badly. Explains it away with pressure from the board, plays down the effects and starts asking who else thinks so.
The counterpart also has private goals and information that are never shown upfront. You discover them only through the conversation, the same way you would in real life.
What makes it hard
- Your boss quickly moves to explaining the pressure from above.
- They ask who else feels this way and want names.
- They play the problem down as normal in a fast-moving company.
Your goals
- Present one issue with specific examples
- Show the effect on the team without judging your boss’s intentions
- Agree on a concrete change or a trial for the coming weeks
What the report looks at
- Whether the feedback rests on facts and examples
- How you respond to your manager getting defensive
- Whether you protect the team when asked for names
- Whether the conversation ends with a proposal and an agreement
Similar conversations
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