When Philipp Navratil first became a leader at Nestlé, he discovered that telling employees they weren’t meeting expectations was harder than praising them. Like many managers, he hesitated when a conversation might be uncomfortable. Then a piece of advice changed his approach: Be honest.
In a recent Business Insider interview, Navratil described learning to address performance problems directly while working with employees on solutions. His experience exposes a common leadership mistake. Managers sometimes confuse empathy with sparing people the truth, even when the truth is precisely what they need to improve.
The other side of Nestlé’s leadership philosophy
Navratil has also made headlines for the qualities he values in employees who advance. As Inc. columnist Dan Schawbel recently reported, the Nestlé CEO looks for curiosity, hunger, and humility. He wants people who continue learning, strive to make things better, and resist the temptation to boast. Those qualities sound straightforward, but leaders have an obligation of their own. If employees are expected to acknowledge weaknesses, seek opportunities to grow, and remain open to learning, their managers must provide clear information about what is working and what isn’t.
That is where feedback becomes a test of leadership. A manager who avoids a difficult conversation may believe the silence protects a relationship. Instead, it can leave an employee unaware of a problem until the consequences are much more serious. Yet a manager who celebrates brutal honesty may be equally ineffective. Delivering a correct judgment in a manner that provokes embarrassment or defensiveness doesn’t necessarily help anyone improve. The challenge is to communicate both the gap and the possibility of closing it.
Refreshed leadership advice from CEO Stephanie Mehta
Good feedback sends 3 signals at once
In my work in leadership behavior, I study three dimensions of how people experience a leader: warmth, competence, and gravitas. Feedback is one of the clearest places to see all three in action.
- Warmth signals that you value the individual and are willing to listen.
- Competence demonstrates that you understand the work and can describe the performance gap using observable evidence.
- Gravitas supplies direction, making expectations clear and bringing people together around a better result.
The strongest feedback conversations do not alternate between these qualities. They communicate them simultaneously.
When warmth dominates but direction is missing, an employee may feel reassured without knowing what must change. When gravitas is expressed without warmth, the message can feel like a threat rather than a challenge. And competence alone may produce a technically accurate diagnosis that gives someone little confidence about what to do next.