If you’re a manager, it’s not enough to be giving feedback to your direct reports. It’s part of your job to solicit feedback from your direct reports as well. As much as you might believe that you know your strengths and weaknesses well, without external self-awareness — an understanding of how what you say and do impacts others — you’re unlikely to improve the habits, behaviors, and practices that may be holding you (or others) back.

This external self-awareness comes from asking others (especially those who report to you) to share how they experience you. How else will you know what you should keep doing and what you should be doing differently?

Nevertheless, you might find that your colleagues are reluctant to give you the feedback you need to improve, or even sustain, what’s working. Here are five common barriers you might face in getting helpful feedback from your direct reports, and how to address them so that you can gain the insights you need.

1. Worrying about whether you’re even open to feedback.

Far too often, team members expect to be given downward feedback, but unless they’re explicitly invited to offer upward feedback, they won’t know that’s even on the table.

What to do: Tell your direct report that you’re not only open to feedback, but that you want and expect it. One way to frame it is to share that self-improvement is a personal and professional commitment you’ve made to yourself — and ask for help meeting your commitment. Ask, “Would you please help me keep the commitment I’ve made to myself?” That way, your direct report can view their feedback as helping you make good on a promise you’ve made to yourself.

2. Apprehension about “doing it right.”

Giving feedback adeptly is a skill that needs to be learned. If your employees haven’t learned how to do it well — perhaps because they haven’t had access to training, practice, or role models — then they may resist doing it at all.

What to do: Let your direct report know that feedback is a skill best learned through practice — a great development opportunity for themselves — and that you’d like to give them the opportunity to practice with you. Assure them that they don’t have it do it “right.” They just have to show a willingness to try, and to try to get better over time. It can also be helpful to remind them that learning any new skill goes through four stages:

1. Unconscious incompetence (“I don’t know that I don’t know how to do this well.”)
2. Conscious incompetence (“Now I know that I don’t know how to do this well.”)
3. Conscious competence (“Now I know that I do know how to do this well.”)
4. Unconscious competence (“I am doing this well without even thinking about it.”)

Remember to acknowledge and celebrate their skill development as it progresses.

3. Fear of retaliation.

Let’s face it: You’re in a position of power. You have access to resources that are important to your direct report. They may worry that giving you feedback could interfere with their future opportunities. In addition, in some cultures, giving feedback “up” the hierarchy is simply not done. It would be seen as disrespectful and insubordinate. Be aware that these cultural norms can be a significant barrier.

What to do: Demonstrate empathy and humility. Try saying something like, “I know that it can feel uncomfortable to give feedback to someone who has a say in what you work on, your career advancement, etc. I have had the same concerns in giving feedback to my boss. Let me reassure you that I see your willingness to give me helpful feedback — even if it’s negative — as one of your professional assets. I know that I can get better, and I want to.”

4. Concern about hurting your feelings.

You’re only human, right? And feedback — especially when not delivered skillfully — can activate feelings of social rejection. Your direct report may be understandably worried about hurting you and the relationship.

What to do: Demonstrate your self-awareness by taking the lead in giving yourself constructive feedback first, which can mitigate their fears. You might say, “I know that I tend to be slow and methodical in my work, often prioritizing accuracy over action. Others have shared with me that they find my style hard to work with, especially when they’re facing a tight deadline. I’d like to get better at that. Would you share what you’ve experienced?” And then, once you have them talking, you can ask, “And is there anything else I could be working to improve right now that would make your work easier?”

5. Suspicion that nothing will change as a result of the feedback.

Giving feedback is hard, but giving feedback that doesn’t result in anything improving is even harder. Soliciting feedback without addressing it and taking action on it quickly erodes trust, as it undermines your sincerity and reliability.

What to do: Tell your direct report what you plan to do with the feedback they give you. This might range from, “I appreciate you telling me this — and I’m not sure I can address it right now. Here’s why…” to “This is very helpful, and I am going to take action to change this behavior. Here’s my plan…” And in both cases, keep actively, openly, and assertively inviting them to give you feedback.

One final thought: As much as you might believe that you have created safe and welcoming conditions for your direct report to give you feedback, don’t penalize them for not doing so. The complexity of the power imbalances, the differences between what you and they might consider “safe and welcoming,” as well as prior negative experiences they may have had giving feedback in the past (that may have nothing to do with you) may make this harder for them than you’ve imagined.

Nevertheless, do what you can to make sure you’re getting the feedback you need to grow and succeed. In the words of business executive Pamela Gill Alabaster: “Continuous learning leads to continuous improvement. Commit yourself to advancing your knowledge, skills, and expertise…Be a lifelong student.”

Amidst high growth, the salespeople at a global technology company were confused about which accounts and opportunities to focus on. Mark, a rising director on the go-to-market team, was leading a project to build a propensity model to solve this problem. The model took in numerous data points across disparate systems to give salespeople directional leads. Leaders were excited about the model and the problem it would solve, but they often ended up getting stuck in the details during presentations. Mark was beginning to get frustrated. How can he get his leaders out of the weeds so he can keep advancing this important work?

Individuals at all levels in organizations will encounter situations where leaders lose the big picture. We have encountered it across our careers, from starting out when we worked with our bosses on small projects and later, when we presented to boards on transformational programs. While the particular questions in those situations were different, the underlying challenge remained the same. Based on over 30 years of influencing leadership decisions, we recommend three steps that individuals can take to reset the conversation with leaders. We’ll demonstrate these steps with a real-life example of how Mark, a rising director in a $10 billion global technology company, successfully advanced his work amidst a cascade of detailed questions.

Getting Stuck

When talking with salespeople, Mark kept hearing the same thing: “I don’t know where to focus.” Most salespeople had dozens of accounts, and the company sold a range of products with new releases coming out monthly, meaning some felt overwhelmed by what they had to sell. As a result, the company’s sales pipeline was not developing in line with expectations, and the leadership was beginning to get nervous.

Mark had been at the company for over a year and had just been promoted. He had the internal support and desire to take on a big problem, and he excitedly thought this was it. Working with a data scientist, Mark overcame significant technical challenges, quickly building a dashboard that clearly showed salespeople where the opportunities were in their territories. Salespeople were enthusiastic when the dashboard was released on a small scale, and leaders wanted to hear more. The meetings quickly became a drag though, as many leaders focused on adoption data (one of the data types used in the model) and systems issues, as the company had numerous reporting tools. Their concerns were valid, but Mark didn’t believe that necessitated stopping the work. Disappointed with how the situation was unfolding, he resolved to change tactics.

Pushing Ahead

After a wave of internal meetings with leaders, Mark adopted a three-pronged approach. We’ve found that these tactics work in many circumstances when leaders get stuck.

1. Work with your “users.”

Individuals must think of themselves as product managers, treat their work as a “product,” and move with their users. The leaders who get stuck in the details are rarely the ultimate users of the work. Individuals should continue to work with users, taking in requirements, making updates, and demonstrating value. The lack of full leadership buy-in should not be an impediment. Rather, leaders will be more supportive when there is strong enthusiasm from the actual users.

In Mark’s case, though he was presenting to leadership, the users of his work were in sales. Mark decided to keep working with salespeople to understand what they liked about the dashboard and what should be improved, just as if he was a product manager. He kept developing the tool based on their feedback. In addition, when he gave enablement trainings to sales or was in meetings with leaders, he had salespeople present with him. This positive feedback demonstrated to leaders the value of the project and led to them spending more time considering how to scale the work and less time questioning the data nuances.

2. Sell the big picture.

When presenting, project leaders sometimes resort to talking about the work in a project management context where they’ll assume buy-in to the vision and then jump into execution aspects, sharing GANNT charts and discussing roles and responsibilities. This is a mistake. Individuals should instead paint a picture of how the work will solve a pressing problem by discussing the vision and use cases, and tying the work to leadership’s priorities.

After some initial discussions with leaders, Mark created a separate presentation for them. The presentation focused on how the tool would make salespeople’s’ lives easier, which would improve pipeline, increase employee satisfaction, and reduce turnover, a priority for leadership. Mark was still prepared to talk about release schedules and workstream owners, but he never led with those points. The meetings began to go smoother, and the executives were relieved to have an initiative that could help stem the flood of employee departures.

3. Create self-service content.

Project managers should create self-service content that addresses technical questions. If two or more leaders ask the same question, it is a good indication it will come up again. Individuals should prepare simple FAQs, descriptions, or video tutorials that address these issues, and they should publish them in an accessible forum. This will reduce the time they spend responding to the same questions.

The propensity model included data on product adoption, as it was a company priority to monitor client adoption of newer products. Mark realized that leaders were getting stuck on how the adoption data was calculated. He worked with the data scientist and product team to create a page on definitions and another on commonly asked questions about the data, and then he posted them on an internal company site. For more technical audiences, he sent out the self-service content in advance of presentations. Questions from leadership about adoption slowed to a trickle, and Mark was better able to focus the meetings on key items.

Gradual Payoff

Of course, challenges will arise no matter what. Leadership will likely want to make changes to the work or they will want to tie it to other related projects that are also underway. That is just part of working on an important initiative. In Mark’s case, leaders originally wanted Mark to align with other data initiatives that were internal. These initiatives were slow-moving though, and aligning fully with them would have jeopardized his project’s ability to quickly deliver value. As Mark successfully used the three tactics, leadership got on board, and leaders began to tell other project managers to follow his work — not the other way around.

The benefits to overcoming these challenges are significant. The company is better off when this kind of work is implemented, and the team that completes the work will reap the benefits. More importantly though, the individuals on the project will have improved their skills, having overcome internal hurdles and won over leaders in the process. In this case study, change took time. But weeks after deploying these tactics, Mark realized that the tone of these leadership meetings had gradually transitioned from skepticism to excitement. His project’s potential was still not fully realized, but he knew that he had developed a new skillset and that the company’s leaders were on his side.