[adamrmcd]

Feedback on how I am doing as your manager.

This isn't a dictatorship, it's a partnership. What can I do to change/help you?

Most of my team is quiet on this sort of thing. Perhaps it's cultural? (Is this common for individuals who grew up in eastern Europe?)

[dahart]

It’s not a partnership, you’re their manager, you have more power by definition. It’s risky to offer any criticism to a manager. Does your team know that doing so is a safe action, regardless of what they say? (And is it true?) Do you request anonymous feedback? What is the upside for them if they offered critical suggestions? If they say you’re not doing something well that you think you do, how do they know it won’t cause them problems down the road? Will you be defensive or open to hearing it if they say something you disagree with? IMO this can be risky for you too, because you may have a wider point of view on things, which could cause you to have to disregard some points of criticism, which could in turn make it look like you’re not respecting your team’s opinion. I know from experience both as a leaf node in the company and as a manager, that sometimes people being managed can get the wrong idea about how things are going down and start to believe that they see obvious/easy solutions, while the manager’s point of view is broader and problems are not so easily fixed.

[MadVikingGod]

What would this entail? I have had only a handful of managers, and only some of them good. What kind of things should I be looking for to give feedback to my manager?

I kinda feel like I'm watching a glassblower and getting asked "So what do you think?". I could say if I like the piece or not, but I don't know the first thing about glassblowing to give effective criticism.

[adamrmcd]

Good analogy.

It really depends on the needs of the individual contributor. For example, if you know what needs to be done, and you're blocked for one reason or another, let me know.

The key here, and the point of my original post, is communication. Any kind. Sure, some managers don't listen, but also some direct reports don't speak their mind.

[Spinnaker_]

Is it really a partnership? Do they have as much say in your continued employment as you have in theirs?

What I found works best is giving them advanced notice of what type of feedback is expected and when. Schedule a one on one a week in advance. Let them know what you are looking for. Don't combine it with anything else.

The worst thing you can do (and what almost everyone does) is tack it on to the end of a yearly performance review.

[pc86]

Have you gone out of your way to make it clear you want this kind of feedback?

I've had managers who either consciously or otherwise had given me the impression that they're find with their management style and aren't really interested in changing it. That's fine and doesn't necessarily make them a bad manager, but going out of my way to provide "feedback" to them would have only harmed my career.

I've had a couple managers who explicitly told me on multiple occasions that they wanted feedback on their performance and if I thought they were doing anything wrong, inefficiently, stupid, etc., they wanted to know about it.

I've also had a couple in the middle, and for those it's much safer to just keep quiet. It's pretty high risk/low reward in that scenario.

[Cthulhu_]

It's definitely cultural, generally speaking, employees from the wider asia area have similar cultural things where they are expected to submit to the manager / hierarchy.

It's definitely something to read up on if you end up managing people from abroad; I can't recommend any books but I believe there's a few.

[efficax]

you need a tremendous amount of trust in your manager and confidence in your job security to raise genuine issues with management style, manager performance. I've only felt comfortable doing that as I've moved into a upper-senior engineer position with a staff promotion on the horizon. At earlier stages in my career I cared much more about making sure I had a job next month than I did about making the teams I work with/for work more effectively together. Questioning the bossman puts you in jeopardy!