“Keep doing what you're doing” offers encouragement, but it may leave you unsure which part of your work was useful. “Be more strategic” points towards a change without explaining what that change should look like. When little feedback arrives at all, even the starting point for development can remain uncertain.
In each case, you need enough information to decide what to continue, what to change and how to judge whether your effort has helped. A broad assessment of your performance rarely provides all of that on its own. The useful detail usually concerns a particular piece of work, the expectation it was meant to meet and the effect of what you did.
You can often improve the conversation by making your request more specific. You cannot guarantee that a manager will respond thoughtfully, have observed the relevant work or provide consistent guidance. Within those limits, a focused request can give you a clearer basis for development than waiting for a complete assessment or trying to interpret a general label alone.
Give your feedback request a specific focus
When a manager rarely volunteers feedback, choose a piece of work they have had a reasonable opportunity to observe. A recent proposal, presentation, handover or decision is easier to discuss than your performance as a whole. Explain which aspect you want to improve and why their perspective would help. This gives the person a defined contribution to make without requiring them to reconstruct everything you have done.
For example, after presenting a recommendation, you might ask: “Did the explanation give you enough information to assess the options, or was something important missing?” The request identifies the work, the recipient's task and the aspect on which you want an observation. An answer about a missing consequence or an unclear assumption gives you something to examine. A general request to know whether you are doing well may produce reassurance without that detail.
Keep the initial request manageable. Asking about every aspect of a substantial project at once can recreate the difficulty of a broad performance review. Select an area that matters to the work or your development, while leaving room for the other person to raise something you have overlooked. A focused request should help them respond, rather than steer them towards the answer you want.
Timing affects what someone can contribute. A conversation while the work is still familiar may produce more useful detail than a request long after the event. Some people need time to review the material or think about their response. You can arrange a short follow-up around an existing work discussion, making clear what you would like them to consider beforehand. This is a practical invitation, not a guarantee that feedback will follow.
Ask about successful work as well as areas for improvement. If a manager says an update was useful, find out which part helped them and what they would want you to retain. They may have valued the clear recommendation, the explanation of uncertainty or the way you connected the issue with an upcoming decision. Knowing what worked helps you preserve it while changing something else.
Translate vague feedback into a future expectation
A general label can cover several different expectations. A request to be “more strategic” might concern the priorities you consider, the consequences you explain or the level of detail you present. A request to be “more confident” might concern making a clear recommendation, handling challenge or speaking in a way the audience can follow. You cannot safely choose among those meanings simply because one seems familiar.
Start by asking for an example and its effect on the work. Suggested wording could be: “Could you point to a part of the proposal where you wanted a different approach, and explain what would have made it more useful?” This invites the manager to connect the label with something you can examine. Listen to the example before defending your intention; what you meant to communicate and what the recipient could use may differ.
The next step is to establish the expected alternative. Suppose your manager explains that an update described completed activity but did not show what a delay meant for another team's plans. That gives “more strategic” a specific meaning in this situation. For the next update, you could propose including the relevant consequence and the decision needed, then check whether that would address the concern. The agreed change concerns the usefulness of the update, rather than an undefined demand to sound more senior.
If the manager cannot recall an example, a forthcoming task can still provide a basis for clarification. Describe how you intend to approach it and ask what they would expect to see. A prospective discussion will not establish what was wrong with past work, but it can make the next expectation clearer. Keep that distinction visible so that an untested interpretation of earlier performance does not become an accepted fact.
Check that the proposed change fits your responsibilities and circumstances. “Be more proactive” should not leave you guessing whether to raise a concern earlier, prepare an option or make a decision yourself. Those actions can involve different authority. Clarify the expected contribution and any approval or consultation it requires. If the improvement depends on information, time or support you do not currently have, make that dependency part of the discussion.
A useful standard connects behaviour with its purpose. Speaking more often in a meeting may be observable, but it does not necessarily make your contribution more valuable. Explaining a relevant consequence before a decision is made gives a clearer basis for judging usefulness. Specificity helps most when it describes better work, rather than replacing one vague label with an arbitrary activity target.
Assess the evidence behind the feedback
Feedback reflects what a person has seen and how they interpret it. A manager may have read your final recommendation without seeing the preparation behind it. A colleague may understand how well your handover supported their task but know less about the wider expectations of your role. These perspectives can both be useful when you keep their scope clear.
Separate the observation from the conclusion drawn from it. A comment that you did not state a recommendation in a particular meeting is more specific than a judgement that you lack confidence. The missing recommendation may warrant attention, but it does not establish a general personal trait. Clarify whether the concern arose on that occasion, recurs in similar work or reflects a wider pattern supported by examples.
You can take feedback seriously while examining its basis. Ask what the person observed, what they expected and why the difference mattered. If their account leaves out a relevant constraint or misunderstands your role, explain that context plainly. The aim is to reach a more accurate view of the work, including your own contribution, rather than accept every comment or dismiss uncomfortable observations.
Different feedback may be appropriate for different situations. One recipient may need a concise decision summary while another needs the supporting technical detail. Before treating their comments as contradictory, establish the purpose and audience of each piece of work. If the same task is being judged against genuinely incompatible expectations, clarify which expectation should govern instead of trying to satisfy both through guesswork.
Repeated feedback can help identify a useful development priority, particularly when it concerns relevant work across different occasions. Several people repeating the same account of one event does not provide the same breadth of evidence. Look for what they actually observed and whether the examples support the same conclusion. This also helps you avoid allowing one unusually good or difficult occasion to define your view of your capability.
When the feedback concerns readiness for greater responsibility, make the additional expectation explicit. You might ask what decisions, scope or judgement you would need to demonstrate beyond your current work, and what suitable opportunity could provide that evidence. Strong performance in your present responsibilities is relevant, but it does not automatically establish readiness for different work. Clearer feedback can guide your development without creating a promise that progression will follow.
Practise a focused change and review its effect
Once you have a useful expectation, choose a change you can practise in an appropriate piece of work. Trying to act on every comment at once can make it difficult to judge what helped. A focused development action gives you a clearer connection between the feedback, your effort and the evidence available afterwards.
For the update example, you could prepare the relevant consequence and decision alongside the account of completed activity, then review the next suitable update with your manager. Confirm that this is the change they intended and agree when it would be useful to revisit it. A short note of the expected improvement and review opportunity can help both of you return to the same subject without turning the conversation into a large administrative exercise.
At review, examine the actual work. Did the recipient understand the consequence? Was the decision clear enough to act on? These are useful questions because they relate the change to its intended purpose. Merely adding another section to the update would show that you had changed the format; it would not, by itself, establish that the communication had become more useful.
Compare the new work with the relevant earlier example where that comparison is meaningful. Ask for specific observations about what improved and what still needs attention. The response may show that the change helped, that it addressed only part of the problem or that the original expectation needs refinement. Each outcome can inform the next attempt without requiring a judgement about your whole professional ability.
Give yourself enough relevant experience to assess the change sensibly. One successful occasion can be encouraging while leaving uncertainty about whether the improvement will hold in other circumstances. A difficult result may reflect factors beyond the behaviour you were practising. Use further work and observations to refine your judgement, with a review effort proportionate to the significance of the capability you are developing.
Keep effective habits in view as you improve a weaker area. If your analysis is accurate but the recommendation is hard to find, the development task may be to make the recommendation clearer while preserving the analysis that supports it. Feedback is more useful when it helps you make that distinction than when it encourages an indiscriminate change in your whole approach.
Keep developing when useful feedback remains scarce
A specific request may still receive a vague reply or no reply. You can follow up on the agreed example or review opportunity and explain what remains unclear. Avoid treating silence as either approval or proof that you are performing poorly. It leaves an information gap, and recognising that gap is part of judging your evidence honestly.
Other people may be able to comment on aspects of your work they have directly experienced. A colleague who uses your output can explain its practical usefulness; an experienced peer may help you examine your reasoning. Choose people whose perspective fits the capability you want to develop. Their observations can broaden your understanding, while remaining distinct from your manager's assessment of role expectations or progression.
Work outputs and established expectations can provide further points of comparison. You may be able to review whether a recommendation addressed the decision it was meant to support, or whether a handover contained information its recipient needed. Such assessment can guide a provisional improvement. Where possible, bring the resulting examples back into a conversation with the manager so that you can test whether your interpretation matches their expectations.
If the lack of feedback continues to leave important performance or development expectations uncertain, make the problem explicit through the normal development or management arrangements available to you. Describe the information you have requested, what is still missing and how that affects your ability to improve. You are seeking a usable basis for the work, not accepting sole responsibility for fixing another person's communication.
The value of a more specific feedback request is the clearer learning it can make possible. A relevant observation, an understood expectation and a chance to review the next attempt give you something practical to work with. Even when the environment remains imperfect, that approach can help you distinguish what you know about your performance from what you are still trying to establish.
