One of the high pain areas for leaders are performance reviews. Here are the five most common mistakes leaders and managers make and some practical leadership skills you can build to avoid them.
5. The number 5 spot mainly impacts previous high performers or folks who do well in parts of their job. It’s the HALO effect. Here the leader is so impressed by one or two things the staff member has done that they overlook the over-all performance.
What you can do: Make sure you’re looking at the staff member’s job description, balanced score card or targets. Before you give your feedback make sure they are performing in all the dimensions.
4. At number 4 we have LENIENCY. This tends to impact just below par performers. Instead of landing the solid feedback leaders “soften” the feedback and give an average rating rather than provide honest feedback about poor performance.
What you can do: Get specific and ground your feedback with examples. If you feel uncomfortable telling someone they haven’t done well stick to specific examples of the poor performance and ask the staff member what they’d do differently. Once they’ve acknowledged the examples it will be easier to land the lower rating.
3. The most annoying feedback is the AVERAGE where managers haven’t bothered to get close enough to the action to know if a good job has been done so opt for the middle of the road approach.
What you can do: Always back up your performance feedback with specifics. Look for data by reviewing projects that the staff member was involved in or by getting specific, grounded feedback from your clients and stakeholders. And get closer to the action before the year-end review!
2. Another way leaders annoy their staff is falling into the RECENCY trap. They give feedback that only relates to the last few weeks and overlook the rest of the year in their feedback.
What you can do: Make notes of things the staff member did well and not so well through out the year. If you haven’t done it for this review, ask them to give you examples from the whole year to jog your memory.
1. And finally in number 1 spot, managers are frequently overly influenced by LAST YEARS PERFORMANCE. Last years performance is last years performance whether it was good or bad and has no place in this years review.
What you can do: Keep your memory honest by keeping notes of specific examples that you want to give feedback on and make a note of the date, so you know it’s current. If something has dramatically changed from previous years, bring that up for discussion so you can understand what has driven the improvement (or worsening) of performance.
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