Giving and Receiving Feedback in Performance Reviews: Why Leaders Don't Hear What They Need To
Explore why honest feedback is not just a skill to deliver, it's a culture to build. Because a performance review is only as honest as the leader makes it safe to be.
Glynne Steele
Founder of DoThinkDo
Kate Leto
Executive Product Leadership Coach and Author
About this webinar
Performance review season is exactly when leaders most need honest feedback, and often when they're least likely to get it. Ask a leader if their reviews are honest conversations and most will say yes. Ask their team, and you'll often hear something different.
What makes people hold back or edit what they say in a performance review? Is it the rating sitting in the room, the pay decision riding on it, or something closer to home: the leader's own behaviour? And once you understand why people edit their feedback, what actually changes it? What does it take to make feedback useful rather than dreaded, and to structure a review conversation that builds trust instead of eroding it?
Join our special guest, Kate Leto, Executive Coach for Product Leaders, alongside our host Glynne Steele, Founder of DoThinkDo, as they explore why performance reviews so rarely deliver the honest conversation they're meant to be, what makes people filter or edit their feedback when the stakes are highest, and how leaders may be unknowingly contributing to the silence. They'll look at what's really happening in the room when a leader is also the person deciding someone's rating, pay or promotion, how to prepare for and structure that conversation so it builds trust rather than closing people down, and what changes when leaders learn to receive feedback as well as they give it.
Whether you're preparing for review season, trying to understand why your own reviews don't surface what you need to hear, or wanting to look honestly at your own part in the pattern, this session will provide practical, coachable techniques you can use in your very next review conversation.
We'll discuss:
- Why performance reviews so rarely deliver the honest conversation they're meant to be
- What makes people hold back or edit their feedback when their rating and pay are on the line
- The specific, often unconscious ways leaders shut down openness in review conversations
- Why the power imbalance built into a review makes trust harder to earn
- What it actually takes to make feedback useful rather than dreaded
- How to prepare for and structure a review conversation that builds trust instead of eroding it
- What changes when leaders learn to receive feedback as well as they give it
- Shifts leaders can make before, during and after the review to hear more of the truth
Kate Leto
For the past 25 years Kate has immersed herself in the world of product management, organisational design and personal development. She had a front row seat to ways that products are discovered, defined, developed and delivered. Today she takes that experience into organisations of all kinds around the world, to help create authentic leaders, teams and cultures.
Her unique education, skills and experiences have given her a particular perspective and a distinctive style. Her coaching ethos centres on the belief that a considered and authentic leadership style comes from within ourselves. It’s created by the experiences we’ve had and beliefs we hold. It’s who we are. Understanding and owning our unique values and skills is the key to discovering personal and authentic leadership principles that work.
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