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One of my former direct reports came from a FAANG company.

After a few months of working together, they told me: “I learned more from you in three months than I did from my previous manager in five years. When I sent them anything to review, they almost always said ‘looks good.’ This is the first time I’ve ever gotten such detailed feedback.”

That conversation stuck with me because it revealed something kind of terrifying:

Every time you say “looks good” about work that isn’t actually good, your team’s standards drop a little.

It’s subtle, which is why it’s insidious.

A “strategy doc” that’s actually a list of tactics gets approved.

A customer email with weak positioning goes out.

A proposal that lacks a point of view gets a green light.

The work you label “good enough” today becomes your team’s new standard tomorrow. Your bar for quality gradually lowers, one “looks good” at a time.

⛑️ Welcome and thanks for being here. If you’re looking to dramatically improve your communication and leadership, I typically work with tech leaders on: managing up to a CEO/SVP, strengthening your executive communication, and delegating to a team of ICs while raising the bar. If you’re interested, learn more about my coaching approach.

Managers typically say “looks good” for one of two reasons:

1. You care about quality, but it’s faster to fix the work yourself.

• “I'll just make these changes tonight.”

• “It’s easier to do it myself than explain what needs work.”

• “It will take too long to teach my direct report why this is mediocre.”

This approach means you get stuck owning IC work, even if you technically have direct reports.

By the time you finish redoing your team’s work, you have no energy left to zoom out, look ahead beyond this week, or think about strategic initiatives.

2. You don’t prioritize quality, so you think the work is fine as is.

• “We’re prioritizing speed over quality.”

• “Done is better than perfect.”

• “It’s not worth the time to make this better.”

This approach normalizes mediocrity in the name of efficiency. Your team thinks they’re moving fast and ticking all the boxes…except they’re executing poorly at each step. Unsurprisingly, they don’t get the results they’re aiming for. (Also, if you don’t prioritize quality, you can’t complain that your team doesn’t prioritize quality.)

Every time you have an automatic response of “looks good,” you’re training your team to think less deeply about their work and depend on you to be their safety net.

This is where we managers need to be intellectually honest. Most of us avoid giving real feedback not because we’re too busy, but because it’s a pain in the ass.

It takes effort to identify why the work product isn’t landing, figure out how to fix it, share what great looks like, and explain this to your direct report in a way that’s compelling. There’s a lot of mental effort involved.

But here’s the thing:

You either invest the time to train your team, or you take a few hours every day to correct their work forever.

Pick your poison.

In the short term, giving feedback takes a bit longer. In the long term, training your team eventually makes your life easier and energizes your high performers.

I love this quote from ServiceNow CEO Frank Slootman:

There is performance upside everywhere. As a leader, your opportunity is to reset in each of these dimensions. You do it in every single conversation, meeting, and encounter. You look for and exploit every single opportunity to step up the pace, expect a higher quality outcome... Yes, it is confrontational. That is pretty much what CEOs do all the time: confront people, issues and situations.

In my experience, giving feedback on a regular basis is THE best way to “confront” your team positively and productively. Here’s more on how to give specific, actionable feedback that drives behavior change.

To be clear, no one expects you to give detailed feedback on everything.

But you should be giving detailed feedback on SOME THINGS.

Start by sharing one piece of feedback that is most likely to make the biggest difference in improving the work product. When you review a draft, vocalize what you notice—don’t just keep it in your head.

Instead of saying “looks good” when you secretly think there’s room to improve, speak accurately. Your team deserves more than niceties. Try saying, “This was a great start. To make it even stronger, [insert feedback].”

These tactics can take as fast as 5-10 minutes to do.

What to do today

The next time your direct report sends you something to review, ask yourself:

1. Do I REALLY think this looks good?

2. What would make this excellent?

3. What did they do well, and what could they improve?

4. What’s one piece of feedback that will make the biggest impact in improving this?

5. What’s something I’m noticing, that I can point out so my direct report learns to see what I’m seeing?

You raise standards not by giving a big inspiring speech once a year.

You raise standards the same way most change happens: by deciding this is worth doing, showing up, and reinforcing the standard every day. There is no shortcut.

If you want your team to have higher standards, that starts with updating your default response when a piece of work comes across your desk.

Which question above jumps out for you? Hit reply because I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you next Wednesday at 8am ET.

Wes

My friend Anton Zaides wrote a post riffing on some of my most popular frameworks. I love the real-life stories he shares about when he did (or didn’t!) put these principles into practice, and what he learned. He wrote about these six topics—I’ve linked the original posts below:

1. Not having finesse

2. Having insecure vibes

3. Delivering bad news poorly

4. Not being explicit enough with your team

5. Using inaccurate and misleading language

6. Giving senior leaders feedback the wrong way

For example, I talk about the importance of using accurate language. Check out his story about this:

Until a few years ago, I didn’t even know my overconfidence annoyed people.

Then one day we were waiting for a bus with a coworker. 2 buses arrived, numbers 40 and 240. He said “Let’s get number 40, that’s my usual one”, but I insisted: “240 will get us there faster”.

He listened to me. Turns out 240 was not even in the right direction...

I laughed about it, but he said seriously: “You know Anton, you do that A LOT. You are very sure about everything. Most of the time you are right, but in the 10% you are wrong, it’s very annoying. If you had given me even a little clue you are not 100% sure, I would have insisted on my opinion.”

Since then I have tried hard to re-evaluate my confidence in things before I speak, and put in proper caveats.

Full post is here:

Leading Developers

6 reasons why the senior leadership doesn't take you seriously

Being a first-line manager is an in-between state - you are not yet ‘middle-management’, but not an IC anymore. Your people see you as part of ‘management’, but the senior leadership sees you as part of the dev team…

Read more

15 days ago · 42 likes · 6 comments · Anton Zaides and Wes Kao

The April 2025 cohort is now open for enrollment. The course dates are April 10 & 11 from 12-3:30pm ET.

It’s only January, and the cohort is already 40% full. 😱 If this is something you’ve been meaning to do, you may want to enroll in the next few weeks. (If you miss the April cohort, the next time I’m running the course will be summer 2025.)

Here are new reviews from students from the most recent cohort:

“When I discovered Wes Kao a few years ago, her actionable frameworks helped me see how to bridge a gap. This year, attending her executive communication course took my growth to the next level. Truly a game-changer. [The course] transformed how I think and communicate in various settings. Over the past few months, I’ve applied these learnings to craft clearer messages, negotiate, drive alignment, and communicate with impact, no matter the context or medium.”

- Deepti Shoemaker, Director of Analytics @ Paramount

“One thing that really had an impact for me in 2024 was investing in training and education. Making space to level up can sometimes feel challenging, but it is so so worth it. I took a course by Wes Kao on Maven a few months ago and immediately showed up differently in my work.”

- Hailley Griffis, Head of Communications and Content @ Buffer

“At the end of last year, I treated myself to Wes Kao's Executive Communication & Influence course. 100% worth it! The ability to communicate with intention is skillfully unpacked into the course in the form of tools and frameworks that you practice on the spot during the course. Packed with actionable ideas and nuggets that will give you enough to chew on long after. Totally recommend especially if you like a cohort-based course where you can also learn from each other, and be part of a continued support group. Group sessions are intense and short, so make sure you make the most out of those.”

- Vasile Gobjila, FinOps/TBM Delivery Lead @ International Airlines Group (Aer Lingus, British Airways)

“Looking back on 2024, a highlight of my professional development was completing this Executive Communication course. This course provided actionable strategies to refine my communication skills, especially for high-stakes executive discussions. As a product manager, I am constantly pitching ideas, aligning stakeholders, and advocating for our products. With actionable tips that Wes shared, I am working continuously to sharpen my influencing skills.”

- Sabah Qazi, Senior Product Manager @ Yelp

In the past few weeks, operators from Anthropic, GitHub, Pinterest, Google, Guild, Maersk, Lyft, Adobe, Plaid, Uber, Toyota, Humana, Hello Fresh, General Motors, Stripe, Amazon, and more have already signed up. I hope you’ll join us.

→ To learn more, check out the course page.

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