In part 1 of this series, we talked about writing your self-review, who reads it, how to format it, and more. In this next section, we’ll go into writing a review for your manager, and this works for managers at any level from line managers to writing a review for the CEO.
Just like a performance review written for you, your goal in writing a review for your manager is to help them become better. You want them to be the manager of your dreams and what you imagine effective management to look like. You want them to be better and do better, because we all always have critical growth areas. Without keeping this in mind, sometimes you may edge towards writing a review that reads “they should keep doing what they’re doing” or you might provide very vague feedback.
Writing a review for your manager can be tricky because you’re never totally sure how the information is used.
Here are some different approaches that your skip level (manager of your manager) might use:
- Copy and paste excerpts of reviews into their review of the manager
- Sharing the reviews directly with the manager (even if they are anonymous)
- Take concepts and ideas from the reviews to formulate their own review
- Disregard them completely
Each of these come with risks… for example if reviews are shared directly with the manager, even if they are anonymous, a manager might try to figure out who wrote what, which means people are less likely to provide specific feedback that could be important for the skip level manager to read or for your manager to receive.
Additionally, your skip level reading these reviews is synthesizing a lot of information… they have their own opinions, they are reading the manager’s self-assessment, likely looking at pulse or company survey results or additional metrics, and reading the reviews from the manager’s direct reports, which may present lots of different trends or information.
First, pick your battles. A performance review shouldn’t be a time to unload all of your complaints and concerns about your manager. Whether you’re having a lot of trouble with your manager or you only see small areas of improvement, a performance review is a time to focus on what are the specific areas they can improve on. Is there a specific area in the career ladder that you feel they’re struggling with? Is there a behavior or something you’ve noticed time and time again that is troublesome or causing issues on the team? Are there barriers that are preventing you or the team from performing to the best of their abilities? Those are really the key areas to focus on.
Second, know what your manager is optimizing for. If you think your manager is doing a great job, this is an awesome opportunity to leverage the skills they’re looking to highlight with their manager, or to get more opportunities to do higher impact work. Where does your manager want to grow? What are they looking for? There’s nothing wrong with understanding that and helping them get there or highlighting some of their accomplishments in that area.
Third, know what your skip level is optimizing for. If you’re looking for ways to connect with your skip level, this is a great reason to put a meeting on their calendar. You can ask them directly what is the most helpful for them to hear about in a review of the manager. And if you’re concerned about how they use the information, as mentioned above, you can ask them. Then you’re operating from a place of knowing as opposed to guessing.
Finally, if, when writing your review of your manager, you have a lot of concerns and feelings that come up, your skip level probably wants to hear about them. Instead of documenting everything in a performance review, it can be helpful to provide some key highlights or areas of improvement using language like “I wish”, “I hope”, or “it would be great if” and then set up a skip level meeting to elaborate on some of the items you wrote.
If you’re trying to write an effective review for your manager either to celebrate them or express concerns, book 1:1 time with me to help.
