Leading your boss

FEEDBACK: Do you ever look at your boss and wish you could give him some advice? Giving your boss feedback (also known as “upward feedback”) can be risky. But if you do it properly, it can benefit you, your company and your boss.

Employees are often nervous about giving advice to bosses, and with good reason. What if she gets angry? What if he ignores it — or, worse, holds you responsible if your recommendation backfires?

Whether you give feedback to your boss depends on the level of trust between you, says author and leadership consultant John Baldoni. “If your boss is open-minded and you have a good relationship, you owe him the straight talk,” Baldoni told the Harvard Business Review.

John Baldoni"It's a manager's responsibility to make it safe to give feedback."

Be careful, though. “General advice on how to be a better boss is tough to give unless you’re asked for it,” cautions James Detert, assistant professor at the Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management. Detert adds that employees may not realize the pressures that bosses face: “Subordinates by and large don’t have a full appreciation of the reality of their bosses.”

If you decide that your feedback could be helpful, give positive comments at the start and be constructive with any criticism. Provide your boss with detailed information. “People react much, much better to specifics than to generalities,” Detert says.

“In a perfect world, it is a manager’s responsibility to make it safe to give feedback,” says Baldoni. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, so it’s always better to ask first if your boss actually wants feedback. Don’t just jump in with unsolicited advice. And don’t give your boss negative feedback out of revenge for a poor performance review or her criticism of your latest project.