Why Engineering Managers and Technical Leaders Struggle With Giving Negative Feedback | 10 Reasons

If you're an engineering manager or technical leader, there's a good chance that you struggle with giving negative feedback in a positive way to your direct reports.

As an engineering manager myself, I understand the unique hurdles and complexities that come with providing constructive feedback to your team. I also know how to help you overcome these challenges.

Stay tuned.

Hey everyone. I'm Doug Howard and welcome back to my channel. If you're an engineering manager looking to enhance your leadership skills, then you've come to the right place. In today's episode, we're gonna dive into a common challenge faced by many engineering managers, which is giving constructive feedback to your team.

Why Recognizing These Barriers is Important

The first step in building these critical skills is recognizing the barriers that are holding you back, which is why today we're gonna explore the 10 main reasons why engineering managers and technical leaders struggle in these areas. We're also gonna discuss effective strategies for you to overcome it.

Before we begin, make sure you hit that subscribe button and ring that notification bell so that you never miss any valuable insights on how to increase your productivity and overall effectiveness as an engineering leader. Let's jump right in. 

#1 - Personal Discomfort

Number one is personal discomfort. Giving constructive feedback is uncomfortable for anybody. But it's especially uncomfortable for engineers and it's because of how your brain is wired. Most engineers are left brained, and that means you have a highly analytical mind and this is how you naturally are.

But then your technical education and your work environment force you to lean into using this part of your brain more and more over time. The trade off is that it stopped you from developing the right brain, which is related to emotional intelligence and empathy. This is also why you're most comfortable when dealing with facts, rules, and objective logic.

It's also why you're very uncomfortable when dealing with emotions. That goes for other people's emotions and your own, and it's why you struggle with understanding people and crafting your messaging to resonate with them. 

When you're faced with situations where you need to provide negative feedback, it may trigger feelings of anxiety, fear of confrontation or a desire to be liked by your team members, but these personal discomforts hinder you from providing honest and valuable feedback to your team. 

Overcoming this requires developing your own self-awareness and emotional intelligence so that you can navigate your own discomfort and deliver feedback effectively.

If you're interested in learning more about the left brain, right brain psychology, and how you can overcompensate for it, check out my episode called Why Engineers Struggle with Soft Skills. I'll drop a link in the description, or you can just click here.

#2 - Lack of Role Modeling

Number two is lack of role modeling.

How many good engineering leaders have you worked for? Unfortunately, many engineering managers never experience, observe or receive effective feedback from their own bosses. 

When you don't have many or any positive role models or mentors who demonstrate the value of constructive feedback, You struggle to understand the importance or how to provide it yourself, and without prior exposure to healthy feedback dynamics, it's nearly impossible for you to break the cycle and develop these critical skills.

#3 - Uncertain About Message Delivery

Number three is uncertainty about how you deliver the actual message. Like I mentioned earlier, delivering constructive and non-confrontational feedback requires a skill that doesn't come natural to most engineers, which means it requires intentional training and practice on your part to develop this skill.

This is why many engineering managers struggle to find the right approach, tone, and timing for delivering negative feedback in an effective way. If you struggle with this, you need to invest time in developing communication and interpersonal skills so that you can significantly improve your constructive feedback delivery.

#4 - Time Constraints

Number four is time constraints. Let's face it, if you're an engineering manager, you probably have a very demanding workload and a tight schedule. Providing thoughtful and detailed feedback may seem like a luxury you can't afford, but this is a huge misconception because by not providing clear and constructive feedback to your team, it's actually costing you more in the long run.

You might think it's easier for you to just fix something yourself in the moment, but it prevents you from delegating more responsibility out to other people on your team, and it prevents you from scaling up in your role. 

If that sounds like you, I encourage you to prioritize routine feedback sessions with your team. This will quickly build a team culture where everyone is proactively seeking feedback versus waiting for you to give it to them, and by creating that culture, it actually solves a lot of your problems. 

#5 - Fear Damaging Relationships

Number five is fear of damaging relationships with your team. Unlike managers in other fields, most engineering managers are hands on where you're working closely with your team members on projects and providing feedback in this dynamic can easily be perceived as criticizing their work. 

You can't let fear of damaging relationships prevent you from addressing areas that need improvement with your team though. Because the longer you avoid giving constructive feedback, the more it leads to stagnation that stunts the professional growth for each person on your team. 

#6 - Technical Focus

Number six is pressure to maintain technical expertise. Almost all engineering managers come from technical backgrounds, and your original expertise lies in problem solving and technical skills, but shifting your focus to people management requires an entirely different set of skills, which makes you feel less confident and knowledgeable when it comes to providing feedback in non-technical areas.

Striking that perfect balance between technical guidance and constructive feedback can be a real challenge for you.

#7 - Lack of Training

Number seven is lack of training and resources. Most engineering managers receive minimal or no actual training in leadership skills, like providing constructive feedback. In fact, you probably felt like you were thrown into the deep end and left to figure everything out on your own when you first became a manager.

You eventually turn to traditional leadership books and courses, but those resources don't provide the answers you were looking for. And here's why. Traditional leadership training methods don't resonate for logical brains. The majority of these programs assume that you're naturally outgoing and people oriented, when in reality most engineers tend to be introverted and process oriented.

From your perspective, these programs are mostly filled with unrealistic, theoretical fluff. That sounds good on paper, but you can never really find any practical ways to apply these abstract concepts in the real world.

Without the right knowledge and tools you continue struggling to navigate difficult conversations effectively, which exacerbates the challenge even more. As we round out the end of this list of the 10 Reasons Why Engineering Leaders Struggle With Giving Negative Feedback. I wanna know which one of these reasons resonates the most with you, so that I can create a future episode around that specific topic. Let me know in the comments. 

#8 - Prefer Positive Reinforcement

Number eight is preference for positive reinforcement.

I'm a huge proponent of giving your team continuous positive reinforcement because it's crucial for motivation and employee engagement. But many engineering managers shy away from delivering constructive feedback, fearing that it'll overshadow any of the positive feedback you give. 

You have to remember that withholding constructive feedback will cause more net damage because it hinders the personal development of your team and it stops your team from progressing, and it actually prevents you from growing in your role as a leader too.

#9 - Fear of Demotivating Team

Number nine is fear of demotivating team members. As a manager, I'm sure you genuinely care about your team's wellbeing and you don't want to demotivate or discourage them. 

However, constructive feedback when delivered appropriately is essential for growth and improvement. Finding that balance between constructive feedback and maintaining team morale is key.

#10 - Company Culture

Number 10 is cultural factors. And when I say culture, I mean company culture. Different organizational cultures can influence how feedback is perceived and delivered by your team, and that means no matter what the message is or who it's coming from.

If you work in an environment with a culture of completely avoiding confrontation and completely avoiding difficult conversations, it makes it even more challenging for you to initiate the feedback discussions because at some level you fear going against the prevailing company cultural norms.

Overcoming these cultural barriers and promoting a feedback oriented culture requires intentional effort on your part, as well as buy-in from leadership above you. If you want to increase your impact as a leader, it's important for you to recognize these barriers and actively work on overcoming them. 

And the best way for you to do this is by seeking training. Practicing feedback techniques and creating a supportive feedback culture within your team. By doing this, you can enhance your ability to provide constructive feedback and support the growth and development of your team.

And at the same time, it'll help you advance in your career as a leader. A great place for you to start is by watching my episode on How To Give Constructive Feedback Without The Stress. 

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