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What to say when an executive is missing expectations

Address an executive’s missed expectations by naming the required outcome, the observed gap, and the next review. Hear relevant context and clarify support without obscuring the standard. Use qualified people and employment advisers for the formal process or consequences.

Job feedback is information obtained from carrying out a role that shows how effectively its required work was done. Hackman and Oldham distinguish that direct information from other people’s reactions in their 1980 work-design account, work-design chapter. For this conversation, bring the output that missed the standard. Praise, criticism and a personality description do not substitute for that output.

Replace the rehearsal with a work example

Composite scenario, not a client case: At home, you rehearse a difficult conversation and keep changing the opening. You have discussed the executive’s attitude with colleagues, but the person has heard only broad requests to be more strategic. The gap has become personal before the expected work has been made precise.

Before that evening rehearsal becomes tomorrow’s opening accusation, choose the example the executive can inspect. Put the customer commitment or operating decision beside the expectation you communicated. If you cannot produce an earlier expectation, begin by establishing it. Do not describe an unspoken preference as a standard the executive knowingly ignored.

Separate performance information from fair treatment

Colquitt’s 2001 research supports distinguishing outcome, procedural, interpersonal and informational fairness: study of organizational justice. Apply those distinctions separately. Ask whether you gave this executive the same opportunity to understand the standard that you would give another direct report. Then inspect the explanation and treatment in the meeting. Courtesy does not establish that your assessment used relevant evidence.

Use industrial/organizational psychology, the psychology of work and organizations, to examine how the role supplies performance information. The expectation-reset conversation below is an advisory method, not a validated assessment. Its immediate output is a written account of the deliverable, the observed shortfall and the review. It does not create a legal performance process.

Decide whether this meeting establishes or resets the standard

The conversation needs a shared account of the work required and the gap you can substantiate. It should not become a trial of motives or a surprise legal performance process improvised by the CEO.

Write the purpose at the top of your notes: establish an unclear expectation, address a documented miss, or discuss a formal employment decision. Choose the description that fits what is still open. If departure is already decided, do not disguise the meeting as a chance to improve. Arrange that separate conversation with the appropriate advisers.

Replace ‘not strategic enough’ with a responsibility the role owns. For example, propose a requirement to identify a threatened customer commitment before the operating team loses its recovery options. Ask the executive what information was available at the relevant time. Keep your dissatisfaction with the result separate from a claim that they deliberately withheld it.

Use the executive expectation-reset conversation

  1. Define the required outcome. Name the executive’s responsibility and the business consequence of leaving it unmet. Show where that responsibility was assigned. If the role changed after a reorganization, identify which expectation is new and when it begins. Ask the executive to point out conflicting instructions. Resolve those conflicts before treating the requirement as settled. Keep a measure that reflects the work, such as the contents of an escalation, rather than relying on your impression of greater commitment.

  2. Describe the observed gap. Bring the relevant decision, date or work product and identify the part that missed the stated requirement. Give enough context to distinguish an isolated event from the pattern you intend to discuss. Ask whether the record is complete. If your example came from another executive, establish which part that person observed. Do not make a chain of private complaints do the work of a checkable example the executive has a fair opportunity to answer. Where the concern is late escalation, put the promised customer date, the first recorded risk signal and the escalation time on the same page. Ask the executive to correct those records before you assess whether they had a meaningful opportunity to act.

  3. Hear the executive’s account. Ask what prevented the required result and which part they could control. Distinguish an unavailable input from a choice not to use an available one. If another function owns the input, bring that owner into the support agreement without turning the meeting into a general dispute between departments. Correct an error in your evidence openly. Retain the expectation where it remains appropriate, and specify any revision that the new account makes necessary.

  4. Agree on action and support. Identify the next work product and what the executive will do differently to produce it. Put your own commitment beside it, including an access decision or an escalation you will answer. Confirm that the executive has authority to carry out the action. Route any proposed change to formal employment terms through the authorized process. A performance discussion should not conceal a role redesign that has neither been explained nor reviewed.

  5. Set the review explicitly. Choose a date tied to the next meaningful opportunity to perform the responsibility. State which record you will inspect and who must attend. Send a concise account of the expectation, support and review arrangement, and invite correction of a misunderstanding. At the review, use those same requirements unless you explicitly agreed to change them. Avoid moving the standard after the work has been delivered or substituting a new complaint for the original issue.

If an immediate customer exposure needs containment, assign that action explicitly before discussing the longer performance pattern. Say which authority is temporary and why. Return to the expectation discussion after the immediate issue is covered. Do not treat your emergency intervention as evidence that the executive agreed to a permanent reduction of responsibility.

Say the gap without deciding the explanation in advance

Adapt this proposed opening to the responsibility and example you have checked. Do not promise support, discretion or review time that the organization has already ruled out.

The role requires this outcome. In these confirmed examples, the work did not meet that expectation. I want to understand the relevant context, then agree on the next action, the support I owe you, and the review date.

Ask the executive to identify the next deliverable and the support they believe you committed to provide. Resolve a difference in the description before ending the meeting. They can understand the requirement while disputing your account of an earlier miss. Record that dispute separately; agreement about history should not become an unstated condition of receiving the promised support.

Convert an abstract complaint into an observable handoff

Hypothetical application: A CEO tells an executive to improve communication. The reset replaces that phrase with a requirement to flag a threatened customer commitment before it is missed. The conversation identifies the escalation route and tests whether later risks reach the operating owner in time to act.

In the hypothetical customer example, inspect the next risk escalation rather than the warmth of the next meeting. Did the executive identify the risk, route it to the person who could respond, and explain the remaining exposure? Also ask whether customer commitments became easier during the review period. A better result under easier conditions needs that qualification.

Keep the expectations conversation inside its authority

Do not use a script to bypass employment counsel or an established people process. Avoid hints about an outcome already decided while presenting the conversation as open. State the purpose honestly and protect the individual’s privacy.

Take questions about warnings, employment terms or potential dismissal to employment counsel and your authorized people lead. Do not improvise those consequences in the room. If the executive raises a contractual or personal issue you are not qualified to resolve, record the referral and explain when the appropriate person will respond. Keep those details out of routine operating notes.

Review the deliverable and your own promised support

At the review, compare the agreed deliverable and the support supplied with the actual work. Explain the next decision directly, using the appropriate formal process where necessary.

Bring the agreed work product and the record of support to the review. If you promised access to customer information, check whether it arrived before judging the executive’s use of it. Distinguish a completed deliverable from a sustainable change in how the responsibility is handled. Decide which evidence supports continued responsibility and which question still needs a formal decision.

Invite the executive to show a case that does not fit your original account. Perhaps an earlier escalation reached you and received no answer. Check that record directly. Correct your assessment where warranted without abandoning the standard for later work. The useful review ends with a clearer allocation of responsibility, including the part you must carry as CEO.

Vroom and Jago’s 2007 discussion of leadership situations, discussion of situational leadership, is a reason to inspect the context around the miss. Use it to question whether decision authority and available information fit the responsibility. Do not cite it as proof that this conversation repairs performance, or as a scientific verdict on this executive’s character.

Choose the next conversation from what the review establishes

Use executive feedback to prepare the evidence discussion. If continued responsibility is in question, distinguish the timing of an exit from the broader exit and restructuring plan. A personal friendship calls for the separate boundaries in firing a friend. Those are different decisions from defining the next deliverable.

Leave the meeting with a requirement the executive can repeat, support you can supply and a review you will attend. If any of those remains missing, name it before calling the expectation reset complete. Your next action is to close that specific gap, rather than send another general request for stronger leadership.

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