Impression Management: How should I deliver “bad news” to senior management?
Impression Management: How should I deliver “bad news” to senior management?
Delivering bad news to senior management doesn’t need to be a scary proposition. Senior management wants to know when things go wrong so they can be proactive in fixing them.
The best way to deliver bad news is to be straightforward. You need to clearly explain to them what went wrong, what you’re doing about it—or what options can be taken to deal with it—and lastly, why it went wrong. Most people make the mistake of wanting to explain what went wrong, why it went wrong, and then leave the problem of how to solve it in management’s lap.
Management just wants to know that you understand the problem and that you are proactive in dealing with it. What they don’t want is to have you whine about the problem.
Become the leader you want to be:/