There was a guy on my Microsoft team named Brent.
Brent questioned every decision management made, out loud, in the meeting, without apology. He killed his number every single quarter. He drove a Maserati to work. Not as a flex. Just as a fact.
When I was navigating my first real performance challenge, Brent was the last person I talked to. He looked me in the eye and said:
"I am going to call a spade a spade. You should be in sales operations, not sales. You are not cut out for this. You should not have gotten this job."
I smiled. Said thank you. Walked back to my desk and fell apart.
That was the most crushing feedback I had ever received professionally. It was also the most useful.
Brent did not waste words on people he did not believe in. He had nothing to prove and nothing to protect. Which meant when he told me the truth, it was the purest version of feedback I had ever gotten.
Our team went on to win the President's Club. Brent became one of the most important mentors of my career.
But here is what that experience taught me, and what I now teach every first-time manager I work with: most leaders never learn how to use feedback as data. They either dismiss it, collapse under it, or replay it on a loop without ever extracting the thing that would actually move them forward.
That gap is costing your organization more than you think.
Why Feedback Skills Are the #1 Gap in New Manager Development
Most first-time manager training covers the mechanics: how to run a 1:1, how to delegate, how to set expectations. What it almost never covers is the inner game of feedback.
How to receive feedback without shutting down or going on the defensive. How to give feedback that is specific enough to actually change behavior. How to create an environment where people feel safe enough to tell you the truth.
Research backs this up. Studies show that 82% of managers are considered accidental managers, meaning they were promoted based on individual performance with little to no formal leadership preparation. And 37% of managers report feeling uncomfortable giving any feedback at all.
The result? New managers inherit broken feedback cultures without the tools to fix them. Their teams underperform. High performers disengage. And nobody says out loud what everyone already knows.
The fix is not a framework on a slide. It is a skill, and like any skill, it requires real practice in real conditions.
The 3 Types of Feedback New Managers Will Encounter
When I went around to every person on my team asking for real feedback about my performance, I got three completely different responses. I have seen the same three archetypes in every organization I have worked with since.
Type 1: The Relationship Protector
This person tells you what keeps the peace. Warm, supportive, largely useless.
"Everything is great. You add value in every meeting."
This is not feedback. It is reassurance. New managers need to recognize it for what it is and appreciate it without relying on it. The people giving you Type 1 feedback are not dishonest. They are protecting the relationship, their access to you, or their read of what you can handle.
What to do with it: Thank them. Move on. Do not make decisions based on it.
Type 2: The Constructive Coach
This person gives you something that stings, but it has an address. You can do something with it.
"You have a lot of valuable ideas. You just do not share them the way I need you to."
This is the feedback most manager training programs are built around. Specific. Actionable. Delivered with care. New managers should lean into this type and create conditions for more of it.
What to do with it: Write it down. Name the specific behavior. Build a plan within 48 hours.
Type 3: The Truth Teller
This is Brent. The person with nothing to prove and nothing to protect. They give you the real, unfiltered version of what they see. It usually lands like a punch.
"You are in the wrong role. This is not the right place for you."
Most new managers either dismiss this type of feedback or are undone by it. Very few know what to do with it. But this is the feedback that, when processed correctly, creates the biggest leadership leaps.
What to do with it: Do not respond immediately. Sit with it. Ask: if this is 10% true, what is that 10% trying to show me?
The Real Problem: Feedback Gets Filtered Before It Reaches You
Here is something L&D leaders and managers rarely talk about openly: the feedback your new managers receive has almost always been filtered before it arrives.
There are three layers of filtering happening in every organization:
Layer 1: Fear of conflict. Most people soften the real thing inside something kind. They round the edges off the truth until it is no longer useful.
Layer 2: Self-protection. If a colleague needs something from your manager, access, a decision, or support, they will not give the full truth. They give a version that protects their position.
Layer 3: Their read of your capacity. People pre-decide what their manager can handle before they decide what to say. Which means the feedback your new managers receive is often calibrated to the most fragile version of them, not the capable leader sitting in the room.
Teaching new managers to understand these filters, and to create the conditions that reduce them, is one of the highest-leverage investments an L&D team can make.
5 Feedback Skills Every First-Time Manager Needs to Develop
Based on two decades of experience at Microsoft, Oracle, and Google, and from coaching hundreds of executives through transitions, these are the five feedback skills that separate managers who stagnate from managers who activate:
Distinguish specific feedback from feelings. A feeling (I do not feel valued) cannot be solved. A specific (you interrupt me in meetings before I finish my point) can be. New managers need to train themselves and their teams to name the actual behavior.
Create psychological safety before you need it. You cannot build a truth-telling culture in the middle of a crisis. Safety is built in the quiet moments between the hard ones. Weekly check-ins, open questions, and follow-through on what you hear are the foundation.
Receive feedback without defending or collapsing. The default response to hard feedback is either shut down or to explain. Neither is useful. New managers need a practiced pause: acknowledge what you heard, ask one clarifying question, and give yourself time before you respond.
Give feedback that is specific enough to change behavior. Vague feedback (you need to communicate better) creates anxiety without direction. Specific feedback (in yesterday's meeting, you cut off three team members before they finished speaking) creates clarity.
Follow up after feedback is given. Most managers deliver feedback and move on. The ones who build high-performing teams come back. They check in. They close the loop. Feedback without follow-through teaches people that the conversation did not matter.
What This Looks Like in Practice: The Activation Tax
I call it the Activation Tax.
Every time a manager avoids a hard feedback conversation, withholds the truth, or accepts a filtered version of reality, there is a cost. It accumulates slowly. Team performance dips. Trust erodes. High performers stop trying to get better because they have stopped getting real information.
The Activation Tax is what your organization pays when managers are not equipped to have the conversations that actually move people forward.
The good news: it is reversible. And it starts with giving your new managers the skill set, not just the script, to handle feedback with courage and precision.
How to Build a Feedback Culture That Starts With Your New Managers
Here is what the research and my own experience agree on: feedback culture cannot be mandated from the top. It has to be modeled and practiced at every level, and it starts with your new managers.
When first-time managers learn to receive feedback without flinching, their teams start giving it more freely. When they learn to give feedback that is specific and timely, their direct reports start asking for it. The whole system shifts.
The organizations I have seen build genuinely strong feedback cultures share three things:
They invest in feedback skill-building, not just process. Annual reviews and templates are not enough. Managers need real practice with real stakes in a supported environment.
They normalize the hard conversation. They build cultures where it is expected, not exceptional, to tell a colleague the truth with care.
They start with the new managers. The habits formed in the first 90 days of a management role shape everything that follows.
Bring This Workshop to Your Organization
The Activated Leader: Feedback Skills for New Managers
A half-day or full-day workshop for first-time managers and emerging leaders. Participants leave with:
A personal framework for receiving hard feedback without shutting down
Practical tools for giving feedback that actually changes behavior
A repeatable process for building psychological safety on their team
The language to have the conversations that most managers avoid
Available in-person and virtually. Customized to your organization's culture and context.
Inquire about booking this workshop
About Lilah Jones
Lilah Jones is a keynote speaker, leadership coach, and founder of The Activated Leader. With nearly a decade on the founding team that scaled Google Cloud, plus leadership roles at Microsoft and Oracle, Lilah brings two decades of real-world experience to every conversation about leadership development, feedback culture, and career activation.
She works with senior leaders, L&D teams, and organizations navigating growth and transition. Her workshops and keynotes have been described as the rare kind that change how people think and what they do the Monday after.
Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lilahjones/
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