People Can Smell Fake. Especially at Review Time.

At a previous job, I received a performance review that was about as close to perfect as they come. Top marks across the board. Glowing comments about the kind of leader I was. I walked out of that meeting about ten feet tall, and I may have mentioned it at the dinner table that night. Possibly twice.

Not long after, I learned that the same person had been telling a very different story about me in other rooms. The words I’d been given and the words being shared simply didn’t match.

Nothing about my work had changed between those two conversations. What changed was what I knew about the person giving the feedback. And as someone who has spent his career helping organizations handle exactly these kinds of situations, it was a clarifying moment. It’s one thing to advise leaders on trust. It’s another to see, up close, what happens when it’s missing.

The score wasn’t the problem. The trust was.

Here’s what stuck with me. Feedback that doesn’t match what’s said behind closed doors isn’t just unhelpful. In a strange way, it’s worse than criticism. Honest criticism gives a person something to work with. They can ask questions, adjust, or push back where they disagree. A gold star in one room and a different story in another gives them nothing at all.

That’s what two-faced feedback does. It doesn’t just hurt people. It takes away their chance to respond.

And trust doesn’t get damaged in proportion to the offence. It breaks all at once, and then it gets rebuilt slowly, one small, consistent act at a time. Trust is a must. Without it, nothing else you say lands, no matter how nicely it’s formatted.

People follow good leaders, not good managers.

People can read fake

We like to believe we’re subtle. We are not. People can read fake from across the parking lot. They notice when the praise in the meeting doesn’t match the tone of the email. They notice when you’re warm in the one-on-one and frosty in the team huddle. And when they catch you speaking out of both sides of your mouth, they stop listening to either side.

I’ve also watched organizations promote the most charismatic person in the room and assume the rest would sort itself out. Charisma is lovely. It fills a room. But it isn’t what keeps people in the room. The leaders people actually follow bring four things:

Knowledge

They know the work, or they know what they don't know and say so out loud.

Trust

What they say to you matches what they say about you. Every time.

Respect

They treat the newest part-timer and the board chair with the same courtesy.

Honesty

They'll tell you the hard thing, kindly, before you hear it from somebody else.

What an honest review actually looks like

No surprises. Ever. If something appears in a review for the first time, the review isn’t the problem. The eleven months before it were.

Say it to them before you say it about them. If you have a concern, they should be the first person to hear it, not the fifth.

Bring evidence, not adjectives. “You’re not a team player” is an opinion. “You’ve missed three of the last four huddles” is a conversation.

Make the score match the conversation. Don’t hand out a 4.9 because it’s easier than explaining a 3.5. That isn’t kindness. It’s procrastination with a nicer font.

Review all year long. If your performance process only happens once a year, that’s not a process. That’s an anniversary.

Why I’m telling you this

When I started Work, Advised, I made myself a simple promise: what I say to a client in the room will be exactly what I say about them outside of it. Same message, same tone, same respect. Not because it makes a nice slogan, but because I know firsthand what it costs when that isn’t true.

That’s the standard I hold myself to, and it’s the standard I help leaders build into their own workplaces: honest, consistent feedback, so nobody ever has to find out the truth about their performance secondhand.

A perfect score means nothing without trust behind it. An honest 3.5 from someone you trust is worth ten fake 4.9s.

Have you ever found out the feedback you were given wasn’t the feedback being shared? You’re not alone. I’d love to hear how you moved forward.

Original writing and illustrations for Work, Considered., the Work, Advised. blog. Personal stories draw on Daniel's own experiences; no confidential workplace examples are used.