In this presentation, Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ, argues that managers should avoid giving advice and instead provide candid, constructive feedback. He explains that advice often takes the form of softened language (e.g., "should," "would," "try") that disguises directives, leading to confusion, defensiveness, and perceived manipulation. Murphy outlines three core reasons advice fails: it is usually unsolicited, it carries a judgmental undertone that implies the employee is less capable, and it pretends not to be a directive, creating misunderstandings about expectations. He illustrates each point with concrete examples of typical advice phrasing and the resulting employee reactions. The talk concludes with a call to action for leaders to give clear, mandatory directions and to seek out Leadership IQ’s research‑backed courses on people management.
Chapters
Giving advice does not work. One big mistake many leaders make is delivering advice instead of candid, constructive feedback. A lot of leaders think it's nicer to phrase criticisms by gently injecting words like "should" or "would" or "ought" and "try." The problem is that by using these words, your constructive feedback becomes advice. This only confuses employees, raises their defensiveness, and makes the leader look manipulative. Hi, I'm Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ, and let's get into this. Advice can take lots of forms, but common ones include things like, personally, I wouldn't bother the client before noon. If it were me, I'd get started on this right away. Have you tried talking to the client? You should probably make a few extra just in case. There's no language in any of the above statements that indicates that that would or should is mandatory. Trying to trick employees into thinking they have a choice when they really don't does not make the work any more enjoyable. And if employees interpret your feedback as optional, then they do it their way and it turns out to be wrong, everybody is going to be miserable. If it's not optional, don't imply that it is. Let's look at 3 big reasons why advice generally doesn't work. First, most advice is unsolicited. This means the other party didn't ask to be judged, corrected, or directed. So when you catch somebody off guard and hit them with advice, there's virtually no chance they're going to be in an open emotional state and ready to hear what you have to say. Listen, there are many ways to give feedback. Giving advice, though, often makes people defensive. Advice comes off as arrogance or can just seem like a suggestion rather than a command, which can be hugely problematic. Constructive feedback can push good employees towards great performance, but advice generally just doesn't work. And remember, while advice is, yeah, it's often kind of fun to give, it's generally not that much fun to get. Second, advice is judgmental. When you give unsolicited advice, it sends an underlying and judgmental message. You're obviously not as savvy as me because if you were, you'd have already figured out what I'm telling you. You are probably not at all consciously intending to promote this message, but that's usually what the person on the receiving end hears, and it's not going to inspire anybody to improve their performance. What's more, if you continually offer unsolicited advice, there's a good chance people are going to retaliate and let you know in no uncertain terms about your own fault. You may think you're being helpful. You may truly believe you know better. You may even know better, but you're not going to convince anyone who's stuck listening to your advice. The person on the other side of that endless stream of, well, you should do this and you better do this, and if you were me, I would do this, is probably thinking to themselves, who is this bozo to be giving me advice? They should clean up their own mess and then come talk to me. Third problem, and this is maybe the biggest one, advice tries to pretend that it's not a directive. When you're a manager telling an employee what to do, that's fine. If the report has to be done by Friday, it has to be done by Friday. Tell them that. But don't pretend that you're not giving a directive. For example, let's say a boss sees an employee writing a report and says to their employee, "I wouldn't use those colors for that report. I'd go with something brighter." And the employee says, "Okay, sure, fine, totally cool." Later that day, the employee has finished the report, presents it to the boss. The boss looks at it and goes, "What the heck is this? I told you to use brighter colors." And the employee goes, "No, what you said was," you would use something brighter. I like the colors I was already using just fine. And then the boss goes, listen, when I tell you, you know, I want you to do something, I just want you to do it. Then the employee goes, well, then next time just tell me what you want. As a manager, you have the right, and in fact an obligation, to give clear directions and even make corrections to people's work. But when you phrase it as advice, it sounds more like a recommendation than a directive. Ultimately, all that's going to do is create a misunderstanding that wastes everybody's time. If what you need to tell an employee is not optional, be honest with them. Don't play coy and pretend they have a choice when they actually don't. Let's go next level with all of this. Companies are desperate for highly skilled people leaders, and we at Leadership IQ have got several award-winning leadership courses about to start. Just go to leadershipiq.com or look at the links below and check them out. Literally, you're going to get the most practical, complete, research-backed training available anywhere. There's courses like The Science and Practices of Managing People, The Leader is Coach, Hiring for Attitude, What Great Communicators Do Differently. They're all starting pretty soon, so check them out at leadershipiq.com or look at the links below. Listen, thousands of your leadership peers are making 2022 the year to skyrocket their careers. Why don't you join them? Bye for now.
