“Giving feedback — both positive and negative — is so important. How is anybody going to know what you think about what they’re doing if you don’t tell them? … Saying nothing is the worst kind of feedback. It tells your best friends that you don’t care. So, whatever you do, don’t do that.”

My boss gave me an assignment just over a month ago, to develop a plan for the top executive to meet with employees. At first she gave me a due date several weeks away — and then she asked if I could produce the plan sooner. So I gave up a weekend to benchmark best practices and come up with a plan.

That was over three weeks ago — and I have not had a single acknowledgement of the work, no “Thanks for getting this done,” and no comments on whether or not it met expectations. I don’t know what the reason for the delay is. Perhaps it’s a lack of caring. But more likely, it’s just other priorities. Another project has been on my boss’s mind — and she did take a week of vacation recently.

Nevertheless, I am seriously wondering what she thinks of the document I produced. And it seems to me that at the very least, she could drop by, explain the lack of feedback, and tell me when to expect to have it.

As Nestle says, “saying nothing is the worst kind of feedback.”

An article on Recognizing Employees suggests ways to approach the task of making this leadership responsibility strategic.

• Showing respect
• Being available for consultation
• Offering constructive criticism (in a kind way)
• Making suggestions
• Being flexible
• Keeping employees informed

Being available for consultation is an interesting one for me. I’ve had bosses who would be gone for two weeks at a time — and would then fly into the office, call a meeting, and dump information for two hours — information without context and understanding on the part of the employees. I’ve also had bosses who micromanaged — looking over my shoulder and criticizing the smallest actions. Neither of these is a good model.

The best model is to be available, if not always, then at least regularly; if not in person, then at least by phone or e-mail. Time for employees should be a priority, set aside, sacrosanct. It should not be something to do when nothing else is keeping you busy.

One-on-one sessions are a good way to do this. And I’ll have to say, as much as I’ve complained about my current boss, she’s good at this. She has the meetings once a week, and she rarely cancels. The meeting is usually informative and includes good suggestions for moving forward.

If you don’t hold one-on-ones with each of your employees on a regular basis, perhaps instituting such a practice would be a good idea.

This blog entry takes the Aretha Franklin song R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and uses it to show how leaders can show respect for their employees. It’s a super list, all about my favorite topic, people skills. Here’s just a sample, about manners, of all things, which the blogger depicts as a simple tool that can yield impressive results:

“P = Please and thank-you. As a manager, you don’t have to ask your employees to do anything – you can simply order them. As a leader, if you treat them as if they do have a choice, they’ll end up exceeding your expectations. Saying thanks and showing sincere appreciation is another way to show respect. Most managers think they do a good job at this…. most employees think they don’t. Try doing it until it feels like overkill, and then you can pull back if people start complaining (it’s never happened).”

Not all the suggestions in this list are this easy.  But like this one, they all involve paying attention to how you interact with people.

Many people in leadership positions simply don’t treat people as though they matter. The ideas in this blog entry will help you not be one of these leaders, who are inevitably less effective than they could be.

I often work on websites. It’s amazing how often content-providers just want to put information on the site about themselves. Many of them weem not to think of their users at all. What does the user need? What is he or she trying to do on the site? These are questions that, if answered, will always improve the quality of a website.

These leadership questions are similar. What does the follower need? What is the follower doing? How do his or her actions show progress? These are the best questions a leader can ask.

Here is the list:

• Are [my followers] passionate about the vision?
• Are they reaching their goals and objectives?
• Are they taking ownership of their role on the team?
• Do they hold themselves accountable for their performance?
• Do they demonstrate a passion for serving the customer? Each other?
• Are they stronger and more effective than, say, a year ago?
• Are they gracefully exercising more initiative?
• Are their skill sets improving?
• Do they challenge ideas instead of each other (or you)?
• Do they handle the inevitable conflict on the team well?
• Is your confidence in their competence increasing?
• Are they becoming leaders themselves?

Winters goes on to say, “Good followers are hard to find. Why? Because good leaders are hard to find as well! Your followers are a reflection of you – your strengths, your blind spots and even your idiosyncrasies.”

Answering the questions honestly might just tell you where you need to focus your leadership development efforts! As with websites, any such focus will almost certainly show positive results.

It would have been so easy. She could have referred the person to me from the get-go. She could have said, “I talked to Jo Ellen and she said …” But she did neither.

It’s funny. I’ve been angry at my boss several times, but this time, I just shrugged my shoulders and said, “Oh, well, business as usual.” I guess I’m getting used to it.

I don’t think this leader is aware of how her actions make others feel. I don’ t think she is a bad person … just an insensitive one at times.

Have you had similar experiences? Or perhaps the opposite kind, where your leader did give you the credit you deserve?

The best leaders, it seems to me, don’t worry so much about time — about the “letter of the law” of time, I mean. Of course, they expect the people that work for them to put in the appropriate amount of time, to do the work they’re responsible for, and sometimes even more — but they trust these people to manage their for themselves. If a snowstorm comes, for example, and a woman has to go pick up her child before driving 20 slow miles home on slippery roads, and leaves early to manage these tasks, a good leader does not question that action. He or she does not then fire off a letter to all the employees in the group reminding them that they must not forget deadlines if they decide to leave early, and another e-mail to the woman’s supervisor asking if he had approved her action.

Yes, this incident happened recently where I work. I felt insulted by the e-mail I received after my co-worker left early — and others in my group did, too. The supervisor in question spent the afternoon writing back in defense of his employee’s action. Time well spent? I think not.

In another, similar example, I reported my time one week, and my supervisor said, “What about Thursday morning, when you were late?” (I had stayed home an hour prior to going to the airport to pick up my husband, returning from a business trip.) I said, “No, I didn’t mark that down, but neither did I mark down the six hours I worked at home on Saturday.” She said, “Oh, yes, I forgot about that … well, we won’t worry about the tardiness, then.” Once again, why did she ever think she had to?

What I good leader does, I think, is to set clear expectations about time up front, then turn the subject over to the employees to manage. If a problem arises with one employee, the leader deals with that one employee, and does not extend those dealings to the entire group. He or she errs on the side of trust in this case, rather than on the side of micromanaging time.

For trust, in small matters like this, yields benefits that no accounting of time can equal.

The article goes on to offer seven rules (quoted verbatim here) for trusting in today’s world:

I especially like the writer’s description of how the little chick looked at various stages — almost dead, it seemed, to the children watching the momentous event. Yet, the chick was not dead, just resting and regrouping in the midst of its challenge. We do the same — we may look defeated at times, but perhaps instead, we are just resting and regrouping in the challenges that accompany any significant change in our lives.

These days, I personally am “hatching” as I lead internal communication efforts at my workplace and manage a couple of student interns. My major challenge is taking care of the interns and getting them to help me get lots of work done, all the while navigating a tricky relationship with my own boss. While not a huge challenge in the big scheme of things, nevertheless it’s not easy.

Here’s to the hard work of hatching — and to the joy of becoming what you want to be.

I took a look at the errors I was making consistently. One of them stood out. I became so focused on finding the right square for a given number that I did not see the existing numbers already in their places.  So I might have 2 9’s in the same row, or two 2’s in the same square. And the existing number was essentially invisible to me!

I think similar things sometimes happens in the real world. People don’t see part of the solution to their problems, even when it’s right in front of their eyes … perhaps, like me, they’re too focused on the detail at hand.

At such times, one of the best things to do is shut the book and let the puzzle ride for awhile. When you come back to it with fresh eyes, those double numbers might just jump out at you! Out in the world, step back from the problem at hand. Work on another issue for awhile, or even go take a walk and work on no problem at all. Then when you return, what you could not see before will likely become visible.