Comment by ulnarkressty
1 year ago
The first pair (evaluation/description) is especially tricky to separate in a management situation. I have seen many times an employee make a mistake and be given proper descriptive feedback, they will take it as evaluative and their performance will degrade due to the added pressure - and eventually be let go. Similarly, if the manager doesn't mention the performance and is unconditionally supportive, the employee will continue to do poor quality work, will be let go and then complain that they were not given enough feedback and the chance to do a better job. It takes real finesse to understand the person, see their potential and set a path for improvement.
It depends on so many things, but in a climate where someones income depends on the performance it is easy to understand they behave defensive.
As a counter example I worked for a small company where the owner is a very good software engineer. I knew that he knew that I know what I'm doing.
So we could freely talk about problems without the toxicity that often comes with it.
As someone reasonably early in their career, I'd be really interested to hear from you or other people with experience in this area. How does one handle this correctly? I'm sure it's a case-by-case basis, but what are the commonalities of the solutions in those cases?