I want to talk about feedback. Feedback has been a keen focus throughout my career, mostly on: “How can I improve?”. Like many people, I tend to think about giving feedback when things are not going well rather than when they are. This is my recent experience with receiving regular, positive feedback. I hope it inspires you to think about your feedback to colleagues (and perhaps dish out more of the good stuff!).

I’m just over four months into my new role at 101 Ways and three months into our engagement with Recharge as a tech lead. During this time, I’ve been reflecting on my growth from an individual contributor into leadership and how to support others around me on the same journey.

Outwardly, it’s probably a pretty successful journey, but in all honesty, it’s been a rough ride internally. I went from feeling like I was consistently smashing it to feeling like I was consistently making a hash of things. The self-doubt has been crippling. Despite having some fantastic male mentors and leaders, I’ve never had anyone who I felt really understood my struggles. Sadly, I’ve never had a woman above me, someone who has had experiences similar to mine, as a role model.

I have learned to be open and vulnerable with people around me. When I started out in a leadership position, I thought I needed to hide that side of myself (be less ‘feminine’), but to be honest, I just found it impossible to hide; it’s part of what makes me who I am (and I’ve actually found to be a strength… more on this in another post!). When I arrived at 101 Ways and started interacting with my managers, I didn’t hold back on my experiences and struggles and didn’t think twice about being vulnerable, which also speaks to the relationships we had built in our first interactions and a feeling of trust.

I have felt my confidence growing again. Something small but game-changing has been instrumental to this — timely, specific, positive feedback. Not just “you’re doing a great job”, but “I received feedback from this person today; they said that they are impressed with how organised you are and are enjoying being a part of your team”. I feel awkward receiving positive feedback, and my internal voice shouts about how minor it is or finds a counter-example. But over time, I’ve found it’s changing how I perceive my performance.

Usually, I logically know I’m doing a good job because I get good feedback when it comes time for 360-degree/quarterly feedback cycles. But the time in between is just me in my own head, wondering if I’m doing the right things. As a manager, it’s often hard to get reliable feedback from those in your team due to the power imbalance. We tend to give feedback when we’d like someone to improve or change their behaviour and neglect to keep giving positive feedback when everything is going well, so often, feedback from above is missing.

This timely, specific feedback, reflective of my managers’ sensitivity to my confidence struggles, provides solid examples of my strengths, allowing me to focus and enhance them, counteracting self-doubt. It’s subtly pulling me out of a period of intensified insecurity, allowing me to focus on my daily performance and move forward with a confidence that reflects my skills and experience.

For leaders aiming to uplift their teams, don’t neglect to give positive feedback when things are going well; don’t only give constructive feedback when you need to see improvements! We should adapt our approach to different people, especially if they struggle with confidence (pay attention to whether that person is from an underrepresented group in tech). Some find it hard to recognise where their strengths are and what they are doing really well, and regularly hearing specific examples can propel them as much as having them focus on what they can do better.

This post has also been published on Medium.

Post photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash