Be Honest: Feedback Critical For Career Growth As Women In The Workplace
Diana Vogt Faro founded W.net for women in the payroll industry to network and offer feedback opportunities.
Oh, the feedback forms. Whether going old school with pencils and paper distributed at the end of your talk, or online surveys emailed to you when the conference ends, feedback is both essential and terrifying. Whether you have to give it or receive it.
Written or oral, comments on your performance, your presentation, your growth or your missteps can be devastating when they catch you off guard. You think you are absolutely at the top of your game, and you discover through the forms or the sit-down that your supervisor or your co-workers secretly wish you would take a month off to stay home or just get promoted to another office.
But honest feedback can be a very good thing as women in the workplace. And when honest and strategic, it can help you improve or change course all together.
“Honest feedback can be a very good thing as women in the workplace.”
Rosina Racioppi, president and CEO of Women Unlimited Inc., is good at giving and advising on feedback. Lauren Schiller writes in Fortune that Racioppi “helps women meet their full potential as leaders at some of the world’s largest companies, including Adobe Systems, Bayer, Colgate-Palmolive, and Prudential. For her, feedback is a two-way avenue.”
She adds, “The best advice I’ve gotten is to give people feedback on what you consider the strengths that they bring to the organization and their role. Help them understand their impact so that they can see that trajectory of talent and impact,” Racioppi tells Schiller. “And then have an honest dialogue about: ‘What are you interested in? What would you like to be doing?’ As a leader, we don’t need to create the plan for the individual. We need to help them craft it for themselves. That’s really what a good leader does.”
Women leaders have a particular need for honest feedback and mentoring as they grow their careers. In careers where you have to seek out role models and create networks, feedback is crucial, according to Wendy Murphy writing in Harvard Business Review.
“In careers where you have to seek out role models and create networks, feedback is crucial”
“Feedback is essential for ensuring that your performance of new skills or behaviors is aligned with your own expectations as well as those of your colleagues in the workplace. While seeking feedback can be stressful, you can make it easier by asking trusted colleagues focused questions on a regular basis (rather than just at performance-appraisal time) and making yourself available to encourage them to do the same,” writes Murphy, associate professor of management at Babson College and author of Strategic Relationships at Work.
A network is key to fostering a community for productive feedback. Diane Vogt Faro, CEO of JetPay Corp., is co-founder of W.net, a women’s networking group within the electronic payments and payroll industry.
“A network is key to fostering a community for productive feedback”
“What was important for myself and for my colleagues when we formed W.net was a way of helping young women in the industry, mentoring them, providing the leadership opportunities to set their goals, to achieve whatever they wanted to achieve in their career world,” Faro tells The Morning Call. “It was important because of things we have all gone through in our careers. And it was important to reach out to those fellow women and bring a networking community of other leadership women in the industry.”
This is not to say that all feedback is going to be positive. Even if it comes from networking and friendly mentoring, there may be times you bristle or even vehemently disagree with the feedback. And you may also be judged not just on what you say as women in the workplace, but on your nonverbal cues.
Emory University Professor Melissa J. Williams writes in the Wall Street Journal: ”My colleague Larissa Tiedens, of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and I recently synthesized 71 studies testing reactions to people who behave assertively. We found that women, on average, were disparaged more than men for identical assertive behaviors. Women were particularly penalized for direct, explicit forms of assertiveness, such as negotiating for a higher salary or asking a neighbor to turn down the music. Dominance that took a verbal form seemed especially tricky for women, compared with men making identical requests.”
So can you control feedback and make it more positive simply by how you stand, your gestures and how you interact physically with people?
Yes.
“Our research suggests, therefore, that women should feel free to drape an arm over the adjacent chair, to touch a colleague’s arm when speaking, or to lean in—literally,” Williams writes. “They shouldn’t hesitate to speak first, and loudly, and even to interrupt when it’s needed. Our data suggest that these behaviors will be interpreted as warmth and engagement—not assertiveness—even while they increase one’s stature and influence over others.”
She adds, “It’s also hardly fair to suggest that the burden of changing the system in which leaders are evaluated should lie solely with women. Men have a role to play, too, in fostering an organizational culture in which all voices are heard. And it is top managers who set the tone, communicate company values, and shape policy with regard to gender equity.”
For optimal impact, try to make feedback opportunities face to face and networking in person and in real time. Not by email. Or Skype. Or Google Hangout.
That’s the advice of MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle, author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. According to Digitalist Magazine, Turkle “has devoted her career to examining the impact of technology on human interaction.”
Turkle says, “Research shows that conversation is good for the bottom line. People are more productive, creative, and engaged with their work when they have time for face- to-face talk. Sociologist Ben Waber had employees wear ‘sociometric badges’ that measured their conversational patterns. When people were given coffee breaks together, performance improved. One CEO I interviewed instituted a breakfast meeting for his team. It gave them all an opportunity to share ideas and talk freely. Group productivity increased, and they needed fewer formal meetings.”
She continues, “Help employees work through their terror of real- time conversations by making it clear that revealing your thought process is valued. Finally, be less transactional. Begin an answer to an e-mail by saying, ‘I’m thinking.’ It’s a powerful message. Complicated problems require thinking and then time to talk.”
Whether giving or receiving feedback, women in the workplace can benefit from employing four key strategies, according to Heidrick & Struggles.
“Based on our research, the skill most often associated with being strategic is the proverbial ability to ‘see around corners.’ This means being able to anticipate market shifts concerning customers, competitors, regulations, technology, and the economy—and finding ways to seize the resulting opportunities. This is exactly the type of foresight that enabled Anne Wojcicki to start her groundbreaking genetic-testing company, 23andMe, which offers genetic tests straight to consumers.”
Seeking diverse points of view is also important. The authors write: “Among the most critical disciplines of strategic leaders is intellectual curiosity, as well as acceptance of people who see the world differently and challenge conventional thinking. Hala Moddelmog, former president of Arby’s Restaurant Group and now president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, believes in surrounding herself with people of different backgrounds and different personality types to help round out her perspectives.”
Taking risks is another key. “Women often feel the need to be perfect because the odds are stacked against them, but strategic leaders don’t let mistakes derail them. Rather, they embrace opportunities to experiment and learn from both failure and success.”
Finally, the researchers advise to stay strong in the face of bias against women leaders. “Even if unintentional, these deeply embedded mental models are the product of cultural conditioning and add complexity for women leaders as they confront other strategic hurdles. It’s easy for these types of messages and feedback to negatively affect attitude or performance, but strategic leaders focus on making the criticism constructive and having the resilience to overcome and continue leading in the face of these challenges.”
And if you need to offer detailed feedback, perhaps accompany the old fashioned forms or the digital survey with a sit-down meeting that is friendly, reciprocal and informative. Make it a feedback-and-forth that is satisfying and helps you become a better leader.
About the Author
Michele Weldon is editorial director of Take The Lead, an award-winning author, journalist, emerita faculty in journalism at Northwestern University and a senior leader with The OpEd Project. @micheleweldon www.micheleweldon.com