How to have an honest, effective one-on-one meeting with an employee

“I can handle the truth. I’m pretty tough, Claire.”

My CEO at the time told me this during our one-on-one about five or so years ago. The year was ending, and he wanted to know what the company could do to improve, how he could improve as a leader — and he wanted to know the truth of what I actually thought.

Yet despite him saying he could “handle the truth,” I couldn’t bring myself to tell it to him.

Truth was, I wasn’t confident in the company’s overall direction. And I was troubled when I learned a few employees felt they were treated unfairly in the company… But it felt futile to mention these things. I couldn’t imagine that our CEO would take my feedback to heart and change anything in the company. If anything, I could more easily imagine that I’d provoke a negative reaction from him. Telling him the truth just didn’t seem worth it.

I’ll never forget that feeling of holding something back — choosing not to vocalize what I was thinking because I felt nothing in the company would change. To be clear: I’m not proud of my silence. Now knowing what I know about giving feedback to a manager, I wish I’d spoken up. Today as a CEO myself, I can only imagine how utterly frustrating it was for him to have that one-on-one with me… and then a few months later learn that I was leaving the company.

Having experienced this, I’ve thought deeply about the one-on-ones I do with my own team here at Know Your Company. I never want a teammate of mine to feel how I once did on the other side of the table. And I don’t want to be like my former boss, blindsided by how an employee is actually feeling.

To encourage honest responses during a one-on-one with an employee, here’s what I keep in mind…

Read the full article @ Know Your Company

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