Here’s how supportive criticism can transform your team’s success.

Accountability’s purpose is to improve future performance. The results are readily apparent: employees meet standards, work together well, increase productivity, manage conflict, and delight customers, among other advantages.

It’s challenging to get right. There’s a good chance your subordinate leaders fall into one of two camps that undermine accountability. 

Is this topic important to you? Read on to find a fresh approach to accountability that improves future performance without awkwardness.

The 2 Unhealthy Common Approaches

Some leaders opt for the authoritarian style reminiscent of George C. Scott’s portrayal of General George S. Patton, Jr., in Patton: you make people fear you more than they fear failure, you make enormous demands, accept no excuses, chew people out, and rake them over the coals for past mistakes. 

That approach worked poorly for the real Patton, who Eisenhower fired for assaulting his own soldiers in Sicily. Patton learned his lesson, and his legendary victories after D-Day were attributable, in part, to better accountability practices. 

Others take the so-called servant leader approach, reducing their demands on employees by taking more of the burden themselves, avoiding confrontation, letting people set their own standards, and picking up the slack because they believe every failure or shortfall is their fault. 

Authoritarians have significant challenges with employee dissatisfaction and turnover, while servant leaders have burnout. Neither approach improves future performance.

What’s Wrong with How They Provide Feedback

The feedback sandwich is a common approach between the two: you try to soften the impact by saying something positive about the person, providing “constructive criticism,” and ending on a high note with more affirmation. 

This exchange between Henry and his boss, Mary (not their real names), is a typical example.

Henry, I appreciate your work here. I want to give you some feedback. You are not anticipating needs very well, and we always seem to scramble at the last minute, especially before major events and board meetings. You are supposed to go on two weeks of vacation in three days and have yet to frame the read-ahead due two weeks after you return. What you have in the shared folder is poorly formatted and not acceptable. Overall, though, you are doing great work.

What do you think about this exchange? Chances are very high that you’ve either given or received this type of feedback. 

Mary used the session to unburden her frustrations and felt better about it by sandwiching the criticism with praise.

Henry was demoralized. He concluded that Mary believes him incompetent and wants to get rid of him. He’s frustrated because Mary hasn’t set clear expectations, and their recent exchange hasn’t given him any ways to improve his performance. Just because you tell people what they are doing wrong does not mean what right looks like is apparent to them. The empty praise on either end seems disingenuous and reinforces his belief that you want to fire him.

The sins of the past focus is the biggest shortcoming of so-called constructive criticism. 

Yet, sometimes, you must highlight what went wrong with past performance to illustrate the impact and contrast it with standard-meeting performance.

How do you thread that needle?

Supportive Criticism: A 5-Step Process

Here’s a different approach, which I’m calling supportive criticism. It’s a five-step process.

1. Note the shortfall and express confidence, “Waiting until the last minute to prepare the meeting document impedes coordination and performance. My standards for a read-ahead are very high, and I know you can meet them.”
2. Discuss the impact: “We are inadequately prepared for the meeting because we’re making constant last-minute changes, the late read-ahead and formatting errors undermine our credibility, and we’re not getting the decisions we need from the board.”
3. Here’s how to do it better next time.
4. Here’s what I’m going to do to help you be successful.
5. What does ideal support look like?

Here’s how a supportive criticism conversation could go.

Henry, I want to discuss the recent board read-ahead documents because they do not meet our quality and timeliness standards, and I am confident you can meet them (1). 

When the read-ahead is late and poorly formatted, we look unprofessional and don’t set the meeting up for success. We have to give people extra time to read the document, which reduces the discussion and coordination, and we have to punt too many decisions later, which slows our ability to get things done (2).

Next time, I’d like to see a final read-ahead copy two weeks before the meeting so we can do a final quality check, get the material in front of the board on time, and conduct pre-coordination on the key decisions (3). 

I recognize I need to do a better job of setting you up to be successful. To improve clarity, I will use the “X so that Y by when” format so you know what needs to be done, the results and outcomes I’m looking for, and the deadline. Second, let’s coordinate two check-ins beforehand so you can raise questions, show progress, and identify areas where you need additional support (4). Third, you take on a tremendous amount of work, so I want to use our weekly check-ins to ensure we’re aligned on priorities and that I’m not overloading you. What else does ideal support for you look like (5)?

Do you feel the difference in the two approaches? If you were Henry, which one would inspire you? 

Supportive criticism shows Henry what’s short of the mark, how he can do it better, and how you will help him be successful (without doing it for him like many “servant leaders” would do). 

Try this approach on for size, and let me know how it’s working for you.

I write these articles to give you the tools and action steps that get results. Although we had several leadership classes in the military, the vast majority focused on theories and principles. They all sounded good, but I often stumbled without the conscious processes to implement them. 

To help you avoid my errors, I provide you with tools (like Supportive Criticism) that turn theory into practical application. The more value you gain for free, the more likely you are to discuss ways to accelerate your success. Your commitment to getting good at getting better makes you the kind of person who’s a joy to support.

Do you want to discuss supportive criticism approaches further? Book a call.