The person who most needs your feedback also signs off on your raise.
You report to someone whose habit is hurting the team. Maybe they commit to deadlines nobody was consulted on. Maybe they interrupt your people in meetings until the room goes quiet. Everyone sees it. Nobody says it. And you suspect you're the one who has to.
What most managers do.
They hint. A soft comment after a meeting. A joke with an edge. A vague "some people have mentioned" buried in a survey. Or they vent sideways to peers and hope the message drifts upward on its own. Hints protect you, not the relationship. And vague feedback gives a senior person nothing to act on and plenty to dismiss.
What actually works.
Three moves, in order.
1. Ask for the conversation. Try: "Can I share something I'm seeing that I think you'd want to know about?" Permission changes the footing. You're no longer ambushing your boss. They invited it.
2. Name one behaviour and its cost. Not a pattern. Not a personality. One moment: "In Tuesday's meeting, the deadline got committed before the team weighed in. Two people told me afterward they've stopped raising concerns."
3. Tie it to their goal, not yours. Senior people move fastest when something threatens what they already care about. "I know you want this launch to stick. I think this is working against that."
I watched this play out with an operations lead at a manufacturing company in Cambridge, Ontario. She needed to tell the plant director that his open-door policy had quietly become a way for her team to route around her. She asked for the conversation, named two examples from a single week, and connected it to his own stated goal of preparing her to take over the plant someday. He went quiet for a moment. Then he thanked her.
Not every senior leader will. But the ones worth working for usually do. And here's the part most people miss: done this way, the conversation raises your standing. It signals you care more about the outcome than your own comfort.
Feedback up the ladder is not insubordination. Silence is just a slower way of failing them.
P.S. Have you ever given hard feedback to someone above you? Hit reply and tell me how it went. I read every response.
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Troy Treleaven | Hard Conversations
Dale Carnegie | Lead with Impact Program
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