How To Deal With A Manager Who Gives Little Feedback
Feedback is the best way to accelerate your career growth.
In the corporate world, especially in the tech industry, having a manager who provides little feedback can hinder career advancement. Not only does the lack of feedback leave you frustrated, but it could also leave you feeling uncertain about your performance and career trajectory.
However annoying this situation is, it could actually offer a valuable opportunity for proactive career development and a dose of empowerment—both valuable skills if you are aspiring to become an executive. Here are some practical steps you can take to navigate little or no feedback and ensure you continue to thrive and advance in your career.
How to Get the Feedback You Need
1. Create Your Own Development Plan
In the early days, your manager was responsible for your advancement. As you level into senior roles, you’ll realize that responsibility is mostly on you. That means you can’t afford to just wait for feedback; you need to actively seek it. Schedule regular check-in meetings to discuss your performance and constantly align expectations.
If you have check-in conversations with your manager that don’t result in meaningful feedback, try asking guiding questions:
- What have you done well, and should you do more of?
- What are 3 things I’m not doing and should start?
- What should I stop doing?
These questions are better at soliciting feedback than “What feedback do you have for me?” because they push your manager to find specific answers.
If that approach fails and you still can’t get clear feedback, you can create your own development plan.
The best way to uncover what the next level looks like and evaluate your gaps is to talk to people who have the job you want to have.
A mentor at the next level can easily articulate what got them into the role, how they prepared for the promotion, and help you pinpoint which skills are most important.
When I was working on leveling up into a VP of Marketing role, I spoke to a dozen VPs to better understand the gaps between where I was and the coveted VP role. Those conversations steered me towards specific skills like go-to-market strategy, stakeholder management, and lobbying.
Use the insights from these conversations to create your development plan and share it with your manager for feedback. Instead of waiting for them to do the work for you, proactively identify where you need to grow and make sure they agree.
Here’s an example:
2. Be Clear on Expectations
Clarifying expectations is crucial. You have to understand what success looks like from your manager's perspective. Without clear expectations, there is no way for you to excel.
Misaligned goals can show up as challenging performance reviews. If you tried to achieve X and your manager wanted Y, they wouldn’t be happy.
I often hear from clients their manager or organization failed to provide goals in time for quarterly planning, so they stay stuck or end up missing their targets.
If that’s a familiar scenario, don’t wait. Collect information from peers and colleagues, reverse engineer what you believe the goals should be, and get tentative approval from your manager. You may have to revise your plan a few weeks later when the official goals are finalized, but at least you’ll have an agreed-upon first step.
At the executive level, “I didn’t get the targets on time” is not an acceptable excuse.
3. Create a Feedback Network
While your manager is a crucial stakeholder in your professional growth, they are not the only person who can or should provide you with feedback. In fact, you should develop a network of supporters who are not afraid to share honest feedback.
You can get insights from peers, colleagues, and other leaders within your organization. You can also get feedback from mentors and professionals outside of your organization.
In the rare case of getting conflicting or negative feedback, you’ll have a benchmark. Don’t blindly accept your manager’s feedback when it doesn’t sit well with you. Not everyone has your best interest at heart.
One of my managers once told me I was too aggressive with my team, to the point they were afraid of me. That feedback didn’t make sense to me. My team was crushing it; we’ve had open and engaged conversations, and they trusted me enough to share honest feedback.
So, I did a sanity check with my network. I reached out to past employees and former managers, and they agreed this feedback didn’t align with their experience. I eventually took it a step further and surveyed my team anonymously, and I got reassurance that my team was happy.
The lesson is this: Your network can provide valuable perspective, especially when you get no feedback or challenging feedback.
4. Document Your Achievements and Self-Assess
Keeping a detailed record of your achievements will help in performance reviews and self-assessment. Regularly evaluating your performance can identify improvement areas and prepare you to present your contributions effectively to your manager.
I shared my process for conducting a personal performance review here.
5. Make It Easy To Give You Feedback
Some people don’t know how to take feedback well. If you’ve ever shared feedback with an employee who immediately became defensive and stopped listening, you know it’s not a great experience. It doesn’t make you want to give more feedback; it makes you want to avoid it. Your manager may be feeling the same way.
Make sure you follow these steps to clarify your welcome feedback:
When given feedback, listen with the intent to listen, not to respond. Write down what you hear and ask clarifying questions, but do not react to or negotiate the feedback.
Reflect and create an action plan to address the feedback. Share it with your manager and get their sign-off.
Take action and document your growth.
That’s how you demonstrate you are ready, able, and willing to get feedback.
Your next steps
Feedback is a gift you should pursue. If your feedback is limited right now, see it as an opportunity to demonstrate leadership, initiative, and resilience.
After all, no one will ever care about your career as much as you do, so put yourself (and your feedback) first.
This is how you manage your career, navigate challenges confidently, and create your own opportunities for growth.
I believe in you, and I’m rooting for you.
Maya ❤️
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