How Candid Can You Really Be With Your Boss?

Marchiano Loen stared at his screen for two hours. He drafted one response, then another. He begged someone in human resources for help. Still, the question vexed him.

What can your manager improve on?

“Oh God, I actually have to answer this,” the tech worker thought as he pondered the employee survey. “What am I going to write?”

Bosses claim they want honest feedback. Telling the truth can spark change, make your work life better and show off your own assertiveness. Or you could get fired. (At least it feels that way.)

Like it or not, silence isn’t an option. But you have to be really careful about just how candid to get with the boss.

Loen says he was once frozen out by a manager after suggesting he could improve his communication style during presentations. Warm small talk and jokes evaporated, and Loen’s big projects were redistributed.

Now he uses what he calls “the Jacuzzi approach.” He dips a toe in with bosses to test the water, seeing how they react to a fairly neutral piece of commentary before saying anything of substance. He might ask, would that meeting be better on Tuesday than Monday?

“It’s a survival mechanism,” he says.

The lies we tell

The average person lies three times in the first 10 minutes of meeting someone new, according to research from Robert Feldman, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Such superficial fibs lubricate many of our social interactions, he says, helping us fit in and getting people to like us.

This salad is delicious, we insist. Or I loved the “Barbie” movie, too! With the boss, the photo of their kid is suddenly extraordinarily cute, their jacket perfect for today’s presentation.

“At the end of the day, we want to hear good things,” Feldman says. “Your boss is just like everybody else.”

What about when bosses want to be tapped into what’s really going on, too? After all, you’re the one who’s connected to collegial chatter and gossip, which can give managers insight into how they can do a better job and get ahead. Giving the right information to your boss can help you, too. You just have to share it the right way.

“I want people to feel like they can be them,” says Karin Storm Wood, who manages a team of communication professionals at a private school. But, “I don’t want everything.”

Don’t assume you have all the facts, she says. Acknowledge you’re just sharing one person’s perspective. And keep your language grounded. For instance, describe a behaviour instead of lobbing a negative adjective at your boss.

Wood says she’s OK with hearing that she sometimes jumps around from idea to idea in brainstorming sessions. She doesn’t want you to call her “scattered.”

“That’s like, ‘Ouch,’ ” she says. “It has that element of judgment.”

Feedback, please!

Everyone seems to want our take these days. We’re subjected to quarterly 360 reviews, weekly pulse surveys and drive-by requests for input by the coffee machine. It’s part of a longstanding shift from command-and-control leadership styles to more collaborative ways of running companies, says Doug Stone, who teaches conflict management at Harvard Law School and co-wrote the book, “Thanks for the Feedback.” A lot of it stems from employees who have demanded more of a voice…even if another app wasn’t what they had in mind.

Be careful what you wish for.

“You have to say something,” says Matt Abrahams, who teaches at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and has a book coming out this week about spontaneous communication.

A smart start is to ask some questions of your own to the boss, says Abrahams. What kind of guidance do they typically find useful? If they readily divulge a time they messed up or made a change, be more candid, he suggests.

Emphasising the positive might subconsciously correct the negative. For example, praising the boss for being so focused at the start of her speech could imply that she completely lost her train of thought by the end, without you having to spell it out. But don’t get too soft, Abrahams warns, devolving into coded language and euphemisms.

“You’re being coy. You’ve got something to say but you’re not saying it. That can look really bad for you,” he says. After all, we were all hired to be experts in our jobs.

The risk of always saying yes

Earlier in his career, Irvan Krantzler used to nod his head yes to everything, eager to fit in. That project idea? It sounded great. A deadline next week? Sure, he could handle it.

The result, he says, was often “bad news, late.” The issue he didn’t speak up about—an unrealistic timeline, not enough people on the team—would fester and eventually send a project sideways.

“I can’t be put in a situation where I can’t be open with people,” he says he realised. He started voicing his concerns more, and left one employer where everyone was expected to agree all the time.

When Leslie Venetz’s boss asked her what she thought about a new team of salespeople, she assumed the pair were just spitballing thoughts in confidence. A few months later, her comments were shared with HR, she says, and a person she had identified as weak was fired.

She felt guilty and betrayed, and soon left the company.

Now when clients of her sales training and consulting firm request her feedback, she asks how they’re going to use it. Are they deciding the fate of a division this week? Or just considering a possibility, and gathering dozens of opinions in the meantime?

The answer, she says, determines her candour.

“Everyone says that they want feedback,” she says. “There’s something to be said for taking a moment.”

Former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu delivered a warning to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a recent visit to Washington: Already-high airfares will surge if the war in Iran doesn’t end soon.

Sununu, a Republican who represents some of the biggest airlines as president of the industry group Airlines for America, has for weeks sounded the alarm to Trump administration officials about the economic fallout from high jet fuel prices. The war, Sununu has argued, must come to a close soon, or things will get worse.

Administration officials have gotten the message.

Privately, President Trump’s advisers are increasingly worried that Republicans will pay a political price for the rising fuel costs, according to people familiar with the matter. Many of those advisers are eager to end the war, hoping prices will begin to moderate before November’s midterm elections.

The fallout from the U.S.-Israeli attack in late February has slowed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane, triggering a sharp increase in oil, gasoline and jet-fuel prices.

That means consumers are grappling with high costs ahead of the summer travel season, as they consider vacation plans.

Sixty-three per cent of Americans said they put a great deal or a good amount of blame on Trump for the increase in gas prices, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, PBS and Marist.

More than 8 in 10 Americans said struggles at the gas pump are putting strain on their finances.

Jet-fuel prices roughly doubled in a matter of weeks after the war began, and they have remained high. Airlines have said that will add billions of dollars of additional expenses this year, squeezing profit margins.

U.S. airlines spent more than $5 billion on fuel in March—up 30% from a year earlier, according to government data.

Carriers have been raising ticket prices, hoping to pass the cost along to consumers, and they are culling flights that will no longer make money at higher price levels.

In March, the price of a U.S. domestic round-trip economy ticket rose 21% from a year earlier to $570, according to Airlines Reporting Corp., which tracks travel-agency sales.

So far, airlines have said the higher fares haven’t deterred bookings and they are hoping to recoup more of the fuel-cost increases as the year goes on.

Earlier this week, Trump said the current price of oil is “a very small price to pay for getting rid of a nuclear weapon from people that are really mentally deranged.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that if Iran got a nuclear weapon, the country would have more leverage to keep the strait closed and “make our gas prices like $9 a gallon or $8 a gallon.”

Trump has taken steps in recent days to bring the war to an end. Late Tuesday, the president paused a plan to help guide trapped commercial ships out of the Strait of Hormuz, expressing optimism that a deal could be reached with Iran to end the conflict.

Crude oil prices fell below $100 a barrel on Wednesday, after reports that Iran and the U.S. are working with mediators on a one-page framework to restart negotiations aimed at ending the conflict and opening the strait.

Sununu said Trump administration officials are conscious of the economic fallout from the war: “They get it…and I think that’s why they’re trying to get through the war as fast as they can.”

But he cautioned that it could take months for prices to return to prewar levels.

“Ticket prices won’t go down immediately” after the strait is fully reopened, Sununu said. “You’re looking at elevated ticket prices through the summer and fall because it takes a while for the prices to go down.”

Since the initial U.S.-Israeli attack in late February, Sununu has met in Washington with National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, representatives from the Transportation Department and senior White House officials.

A White House official confirmed that Hassett and Sununu have discussed the effect of increased fuel prices on the airline industry. The official said the conversation touched on how the industry can mitigate the impact of high jet fuel prices on consumers.

“The president and his entire energy team anticipated these short-term disruptions to the global energy markets from Operation Epic Fury and had a plan prepared to mitigate these disruptions,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said, pointing to the administration’s decision to waive a century-old shipping law in a bid to lower the cost of moving oil.

Rogers said the administration is working with industry representatives to “address their concerns, explore potential actions, and inform the president’s policy decisions.”

A Treasury Department spokesman pointed to Bessent’s recent comments on Fox News that the U.S. economy remains strong despite price increases. The spokesman said Treasury officials have met with airline executives, who have reaffirmed strong ticket bookings.

“We’re cognizant that this short-term move up in prices is affecting the American people, but I am also confident, on the other side of this, prices will come down very quickly,” Bessent told Fox News on Monday.

The war has already contributed to one casualty in the industry: Spirit Airlines. Company representatives have said they were forced to close the airline because the sustained surge in jet-fuel prices derailed the company’s plan to emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Trump administration and Spirit failed to come to an agreement for the company to receive a financial lifeline of as much as $500 million from the federal government.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has argued that the Iran war wasn’t the cause of Spirit’s demise, pointing to the company’s past financial struggles, as well as the Biden administration’s decision to challenge a merger with JetBlue.

Other budget airlines have also turned to the federal government for help since the U.S.-Israeli attack. A group of budget airlines last month sought $2.5 billion in financial assistance to offset higher fuel costs, and they separately wrote to lawmakers asking for relief from certain ticket taxes.

How Candid Can You Really Be With Your Boss?

How to deal with the trickiest phrase you can hear from a manager: I’d love your feedback

The lies we tell

Feedback, please!

The risk of always saying yes

Administration officials have spoken to the airline industry, which has voiced concerns about the rising costs.