How to Review a Human Part 2 of 4: Leaders Go First

In part one of the series, we explored how your mindset and self-reflection can help set up impactful performance review conversations. Here's the key for today: There's no reason for a review conversation to be or feel negative, even if what you need to discuss includes performance misses.

Framing a review conversation as an opportunity for growth is part of a larger mindset shift required to grow as a people leader. The key to establishing that reframe is to go first. Meaning, given that you have the choice between talking about their performance issues or yours, as the leader, why not go first?

Here's a conversation opener:

"Hi, so we're here to walk through your mid-year performance review. As you can imagine, some of it is great, other areas there's room for improvement. Before we dive in, I want talk about my role in how the year has gone so far. What I mean is, before I share the details of your review, I want to share a few things that are my responsibility — ways that I've made it more difficult for you to be your best."

The transparency we want from our leaders isn't informational transparency — it's not more visibility to data and numbers. The transparency you want, and your team wants from you, is relational transparency. They want to hear you talk from the heart about your role in things.

Here's the bottom line: If you own your role, you'll have an inspired and engaged team. If you exempt yourself from the relationship and make it about their misses and their issues, you will certainly get disengagement.

During "your" portion of the meeting, take notes. Ask questions like:

• "Is there a specific project where you felt expectations weren't clear enough?"
• "Can you share anything I've left out or point to a behavior that you'd like me to work on?"

Set a new standard for yourself: For every review conversation that you lead, don't walk out of the room until you've learned something about your leadership style that you can improve.