You're Grading People on a Standard You Never Said Out Loud

By Heather Haygood, founder and Chief Leadership Strategist of HMH Solutions.

The short version: If someone is surprised in their performance review, the standard was never set. Private expectations still get scored, and saved-up feedback reads as case-building rather than coaching. What it costs you is trust, and engagement goes with it. Before you write a review, list what you plan to say. Anything they have not already heard, you own.

The line in her review says she operates in a silo.

She reads it in her car in the parking lot, because she did not want to read it at her desk. Eleven months in the role. Every project closed on time. Every decision made the way her job description says to, and reported in the Monday update.

What her manager actually wanted was to hear about those decisions first.

He has wanted that since February. He has never said it. The first time she hears about it, it is a word on a form with a score attached.

A review is a summary, not a first draft

A performance review is a summary of conversations that already happened. When it becomes the first place a person hears something, it has stopped being feedback and started being a verdict.

The assessment may well be fair. What went wrong is the timing, and what the timing tells someone about where they have been standing all year.

Why do employees get surprised in performance reviews?

Because the standard was never said out loud. To the person holding it, a held expectation feels self-evident. Once you know what good looks like in a role, it is hard to remember you learned it somewhere.

Then there is the type of expectation. "I need your reports on Thursday" is easy to say. "I need you to loop me in before you decide things like that" sounds like a comment on someone's judgment, so it waits for the form, which feels less personal than a Tuesday conversation. So what should have been said in a hallway in March gets said in a document in October with a score beside it.

Meanwhile every observation accumulates. Each time you watch someone not do the thing you never asked for, it confirms the judgment and adds to a ledger they cannot see or answer.

This is not a rare failure. In Gallup's 2023 panel study of 18,665 U.S. employees, only 47% of employees strongly agree they know what is expected of them at work. The same study found 56% formally review their performance goals with their manager once a year or less, and 22% strongly agree their review process is fair and transparent.

What it looks like from the other chair

Years ago I worked for someone known for this, and not just with me. It was how she operated with everyone, and it left a bad taste in the team's mouth.

My role was student facing. The students trusted me. They confided in me. When something was wrong they came to me, which I thought was the job working as intended.

What she wanted was someone more energetic and more over the top than I am. That expectation appeared nowhere. Not in hiring, not in the job description, not in a single conversation during the year.

I could feel something was going on. I could not name it, because she would not tell me. Looking back, I can see the resentment building across the whole year, interaction after interaction where she watched me not perform the way she silently wanted. At the time I had the feeling and nothing else.

Then it surfaced in a review tied directly to bonuses, and it did not feel like coaching. It felt like she had been looking for reasons not to score me higher. It was a tough pill to swallow, because I had been handed a bill for a year I never knew I was being charged for.

Surprise feedback takes one of two routes, and nobody arrives ready to listen

In my work, the slower path runs four stages:

1. Hurt. The person absorbs that they have been failing at something without knowing.
2. Doubt. They start testing whether the feedback is accurate, or whether they are being positioned.
3. Anger. Usually at the withholding, not at the content.
4. Recalibration. They adjust, but what they adjust is how much of themselves they bring to the work.

That is not the only route. Plenty of people go straight to defense, arguing it line by line. It looks like someone who cannot take criticism. Usually it is someone defending against a charge they were never told was being built.

Feedback that arrives with a verdict already attached is the fastest way to make someone defensive, which is how the shorter route starts.

The cost is trust, and engagement follows it

Whichever way it goes, you lose the same two things. Trust goes first, and engagement follows it.

When it happens, nobody calls it conflict. Someone stops volunteering, stops raising problems early, starts documenting everything, and performs at exactly the level the score described. Nobody announces that they have stopped trusting you. They just get quieter.

This is why Gallup treats knowing what is expected of you as a foundational element of engagement. If people do not know the standard, engagement is already in trouble.

When should you tell someone what you expect?

The week you form it. An expectation becomes a standard the moment you start measuring someone against it, so the rule that prevents all of this has nothing to do with October.

Not at the next one-on-one three weeks out. That week, in two minutes, wherever you are.

"Something I've been meaning to say. I'd like you to check with me before you make calls like the one last week. I don't think I ever actually told you that, which is on me. So I'm telling you now."

Two minutes in March instead of a number in October.

Then once a quarter, ask:

"Is there anything you think I expect of you that we've never actually talked about?"

The answers are usually specific, and usually right.

If you are already late, say that part out loud

Most leaders are holding something right now. Say how long you have held it. That is what keeps it from sounding like a case you have been building.

When you set a standard you never communicated:

"I owe you something I should have said months ago. I've been expecting you to loop me in before decisions like that one, and I never told you it was an expectation. You've been working without that information, and that's on me."

When it is already on the form with a score attached:

"There's something in this review you haven't heard from me before. I should have said it in March. I'm telling you now, and it's not going to affect your score this cycle."

That second one costs a number on a form. It buys back a person who still brings you things.

Neither one softens what you have to say. Being honest about the timing is a different thing from backing off the content.

It goes both ways, and that is the part worth sitting with

Here is what I left out of that story. That same year, I was leading a team of my own.

I had people reporting to me. I had reviews to write. I was on both sides of it that year, which is where most people reading this are. You have a boss. You are somebody's boss.

So you already know what the receiving end feels like. Use that. The emotional intelligence that matters here is noticing what you have been carrying around before it turns into a score.

And you know the harder thing. When I was in it I could feel something was wrong and could not find out what. That is where the people you lead are with whatever you are holding. They can feel it. They cannot name it. The only person who can tell them is you.

Do this before you write a single review

List every point you plan to make. Then mark the ones the person has already heard from you directly, in a real conversation.

Anything unmarked is yours, not theirs. Say it now and keep it out of the score this cycle, or keep it out of the review and open the conversation next week.

Nobody should be reading your opinion of their year for the first time while their bonus is being calculated.

If reviews on your team are doing damage instead of work, that is a system problem rather than a people problem. The Human-Centered Leadership System© gives a whole team the emotional intelligence training to handle this in the moment.

Heather Haygood is the founder and Chief Leadership Strategist of HMH Solutions in the Treasure Valley, Idaho. She is a Prosci-certified change practitioner, a Genos Certified EI Practitioner, and a Boise State University instructor. She created the ALIGN Change Leadership System© for busy leaders who lead change on top of their day job, with a heavy focus on emotional intelligence and leadership presence. She also created the EQ Mastery Cycle©.

FAQ

What if the expectation really is obvious and shouldn't need saying?

Then it costs ten seconds to say it. In my experience, "obvious" usually means obvious to the person who already knows the answer. If a standard has never been written or spoken and someone is missing it, treat that as a communication gap first.

Is it fair to hold back a score over feedback I gave late?

You are not holding back a score. You are declining to charge someone for information they did not have. If the behavior continues after they have been told, it belongs in the next cycle with a clear record behind it.

What if I only noticed the pattern while writing the review?

That happens and it is legitimate. Say exactly that. "I saw this pattern as I pulled the year together" is honest, and it tells the person the information is new for both of you.

How do I raise an expectation about energy or presence without criticizing someone's personality?

Describe the situation and the effect, not the trait. "In the Monday group sessions, I want someone setting the tone in the first five minutes" is a request about a role. "You need more energy" is a comment about a person. The first can be met or renegotiated. The second can only be absorbed.

My organization requires scores tied to compensation. How much of this is in my control?

The score usually is not. What goes into it is. Nothing in a compensation system requires your observations to stay private until October, and in my work that private window is where almost all of the damage happens.