Sponsored by
In one of my I-O Psychology classes, I was recently prompted for a discussion post on a topic I think about regularly (I swear I'm fun at parties): should subordinates rate their managers? Why or why not? How should these ratings affect things like promotions and raises? (The actual prompt is longer, but this gives you the gist.)
It's no surprise that both giving and asking for feedback are challenging for most. This newsletter isn't exactly about this topic; you've certainly read plenty about it before, and I've covered it as well. Inspired by this prompt, I'm writing this week about what you should do after you collect feedback.
I'm currently a manager of managers, so I see firsthand how useful upward feedback for managers can be when evaluating how my managers are doing. The feedback they provide isn't the core focus of what I deliver in our biannual talent impact reviews, but it does play an important role. 360 feedback is often solicited in organizations, but if you're unfamiliar with it or haven't worked somewhere that uses it, the idea is simple: you collect feedback from multiple sources, including your manager, peers, and direct reports. Feedback from your manager and peers is fully visible to you (you can specify which peers provide feedback, so you can see who left it), but feedback from your direct reports is anonymous.
Conceptually, this is great. Everyone you work with will see a different sliver of your workday, so you should get slightly different feedback from each person (though hopefully you see some common themes across all feedback). Where I see managers go wrong is believing that collecting the feedback is the first and final step.
A thank you from this week’s sponsor:
Want chef-crafted, dietitian-designed meals ready in 2 minutes?
Try Factor, America's #1 ready-to-eat meal delivery service.
Made from ingredients you recognize. Whole food. Nothing unnecessary. Let’s eat real.
Get 50% off your first Factor box + Free Breakfast for a year *1 free breakfast item per box for 1 year while subscription active.
Think about reviewing your own manager. What if you spent time providing thoughtful, constructive feedback, only to never hear anything about it and never see any change? This is the second step you need to remember: talk with your direct reports about the feedback you receive, and then make a plan to act on it.
There is quite a bit of research that backs this idea, too. Walker & Smither (1999) tracked the performance of 252 managers at a bank over five years and asked direct reports whether their manager had met with them to discuss the previous year's feedback. There were two findings in particular that stuck out to me regarding this topic: managers who held a meeting with their direct reports improved more over time than those who didn't hold the meeting, and the managers who held a meeting one year but didn't hold a meeting another year improved more in the year when they did hold the meeting.
Not everything you hear will be actionable (I've certainly received feedback on situations beyond my control or actually meant for someone else), but for the real feedback you can act on, it goes a long way to say "I hear you, thank you, and this is what I'm going to do about it".
For example, the feedback I received in our last 360 cycle came just after I took over as Zone Lead for the Workflow Zone at Zapier. This meant I had EMs and ICs new to reporting to me, who were reviewing me. Here's a short summary of my upward manager feedback:
To strengthen her impact, reviewers suggest Kelly transition more verbal plans into written documentation to support async alignment and provide weekly status updates on engineering initiatives. They also recommend she consistently tag team members directly regarding organizational shifts, delegate ownership earlier, and accelerate decision-making rather than waiting for full meeting attendance. Finally, it was suggested she challenge the team to focus ambitiously on a few high-impact areas.
There's a lot tactically to work with here! There will naturally be growth areas in a new role, and my direct reports gave me some very specific areas to focus on. If I were to take my own advice, during our next weekly EMs sync, I'd talk about this specifically, perhaps ask some clarifying questions around "what would you like to see" (without getting too specific to reveal who said what), and talk about what I'm going to do next.
Back to the original question: should subordinates review their managers? Yes, but I don't think that's the right question. The more important question is what you do next. If you know there's going to be a tactical upside to discussing and acting on the feedback you receive, you should absolutely do it.
Walker, A. G., & Smither, J. W. (1999). A five-year study of upward feedback: What managers do with their results matters. Personnel Psychology, 52(2), 393–423.