The Check-In That Isn't Really About You

Two resources worth bookmarking before we start:

I once sat in a feedback meeting where my manager spent twenty minutes describing what he called a pattern in my work. I could follow the words. I couldn't connect them to anything I'd done. I left wondering whether I'd missed something obvious.

You may know that feeling. The meeting ends, and you're still working out which version of you your manager was describing. You want to take the feedback seriously. You also want to recognise yourself in it.

A colleague later mentioned that my manager was having a rough quarter with his own boss. He was under pressure to show he was managing his team closely. I couldn't know exactly what was driving him. But it made me wonder how much of that conversation had started somewhere above us, before I'd even walked into the room.

The feedback still deserved a proper look. So did the pressure around it.

An employee can ask for evidence and check feedback against the work. The organisation has a responsibility too. Managers need a proper outlet for pressure from above. Without one, it travels down the org chart and arrives in a one-to-one disguised as development.

A paper in PLOS One examined feedback across three studies, using recollections of real workplace experiences and role-played reviews. People who received negative feedback tended to question its accuracy and the giver's qualifications. One role-play study found greater disagreement about the causes of performance once the discussion ended.

That should make both sides more careful. Feeling defensive doesn't prove the feedback is wrong. Running the meeting doesn't make the manager's explanation objective either.

A study from East China Normal University also found self-serving bias when participants interpreted negative interpersonal events. It wasn't a study of workplace managers. I take it as a reason to check my own account as carefully as the one I'm given.

Perceptyx surveyed more than 5,400 US workers in early 2025. It found 45% of middle managers were at least moderately worried about being laid off, compared with 26% of individual contributors.

That doesn't explain why any one manager gave difficult feedback. It does make me wary of assuming the person running the check-in arrived without worries of their own.

You shouldn't have to work out what's happening between your manager and their boss before you can make sense of feedback. Asking for an example should be enough to start the conversation.

Leadership IQ ran a scenario-based study with 1,352 respondents. When feedback about a missed deadline stuck to the facts, 4% said it would leave them agitated and defensive. When a judgement about their character was added, that rose to 62%. These were anticipated reactions to a scenario rather than observed responses in real reviews.

Compare "the project was due Friday and arrived Monday" with "you don't take deadlines seriously." The first gives you something concrete to explain or own. The second asks you to defend your motives, and the conversation turns into an argument about character.

A late project gives you something to investigate. "You don't care" can follow you home.

If you process before you respond, that verdict can stay with you long after the meeting. You may only realise later that the evidence underneath it was far narrower than the conclusion.

Perhaps you apologised for the whole description before you'd had time to examine the example. You can still go back.

Managers can make that easier. Give the example, explain its impact and allow time for a considered response. An employee who asks to think about it deserves the chance to do exactly that.

When a check-in feels heavier than the facts justify, separate what happened from what somebody concluded about it. Ask, "Can you walk me through the specific example that prompted this?" Then listen for two things: the event itself and the interpretation laid over it. You're looking for the part you can act on.

You can ask for time, too. "I'd like to check what happened and come back to you tomorrow." You don't have to produce a complete response while you're still making sense of the criticism.

Afterwards, write down the factual part while it's fresh and compare it with your own record of the work. If the feedback is accurate, decide what needs to change. If the evidence is thin or the conclusion stretches past the facts, take that into the follow-up conversation. Don't carry it home as a settled description of you.

Managers should do the same work before the meeting. Write down the facts you can independently verify and notice where you've added intent or character. Check the context as well. If you changed the priorities on Thursday, that belongs in the conversation about Friday's missed deadline.

The PLOS One paper linked a stronger focus on future action with greater motivation to change. Once you've examined what happened, agree on what should happen next time. That includes anything the manager needs to do differently.

Employees can only fix so much from their side of the table. When managers are squeezed by unclear priorities or pressure to demonstrate control, the company has to address those conditions. Asking employees to decode problems elsewhere in the system won't solve them.

And when an employee supplies information that changes the picture, the feedback needs to change with it. Otherwise the invitation to speak openly rings hollow. That's how a lack of psychological safety in the workplace takes hold, one check-in at a time.

If you're more extroverted, you may process a difficult check-in by talking it through in real time. That can help you test the reasoning quickly. It can also pull you into accepting a framing before you've checked it against the facts.

An introverted colleague may need more time before giving a useful response. To a manager expecting an immediate answer, that pause can look like withdrawal.

If talking helps you think, leave room for someone who needs to think before talking. Ask whether they'd like to work through it now or come back to it tomorrow. The quality of the answer matters more than the speed of it.

I wrote this one for the feedback you keep replaying without getting any closer to knowing what to do with it. Remove names and confidential details, and use it only in a work-approved AI tool.

The questions it asks you will often be more useful than its conclusions.

Take one piece of feedback from the last month that still bothers you. Write down the specific event or result behind it. Check the agreed expectation and any context that matters. Then put the interpretation beside it and see whether the evidence supports it.
If you manage people, run the same exercise on one piece of feedback you're preparing to give.

Finish with one action or one question to take back. That gives the meeting somewhere to go besides another replay.

The open floor plan nobody asked for


A budget line got a culture story attached to it, and nobody's questioned it since.

You can leave a check-in with something to change and still question part of what was said. Owning a missed deadline doesn't mean accepting that you don't care about your work.

Managers have to keep their own pressure out of the employee's performance story. Organisations have to give them the conditions to do that well.

You can ask for evidence and offer your side of what happened. You shouldn't have to manage your manager's worries, too.

Before you spend the evening wondering what's wrong with you, ask what actually happened. It's a fair question, even when the person across the desk is your boss.

In your corner,
— Steven

P.S. Know someone still replaying last week's one-to-one? Forward this to them. They may be carrying a verdict that was never theirs to hold.

P.P.S. What would change if your manager saw your work instead of the story they'd been told about it? The free Be Seen five-day email course shows you how to make your contribution visible on your terms.