Leadership Roundtable: How to Give Effective Feedback
It can be hard to give feedback. It takes courage, and sometimes it’s awkward. If you’re a new (or even a not-so-new) manager and feel nervous about giving feedback to your direct reports, that’s normal, especially if some of them were your peers a few weeks ago.Giving feedback gets easier over time as you practice doing so with different people. You have to be direct about the behavior you’re talking about, as well as the effects the behavior has on the organization.We talked to leaders about their advice for new leaders giving feedback; here’s what they had to say.
Gloria West, a Senior Consultant at Success Labs.
When I was a new supervisor, one of my employees was messing up, and my boss told me I needed to address it. I scheduled a meeting with the employee, and I started out by establishing rapport — you know, “How’s the family?” stuff. We were having a nice chat, so it felt wrong to change gears and give constructive feedback — to bring up something negative that the employee had to fix. So I didn’t do it — instead of giving constructive feedback, I made up something else to meet about.I spent the rest of the day trying to hide from my manager, but she caught up to me and asked how it went. I stammered around, and finally she said, “You chickened out, didn’t you?” And really, it was a relief for her to acknowledge that it’s not an easy thing to do. It can be scary and difficult and awkward.If you’re waiting for giving feedback to be easy and smooth, you’ll be waiting a long time. You have to practice and find what works for you. For me, starting out conversationally and then hitting them with negative feedback feels like a sucker punch. Instead, it helps me to just come out with it at the start of the meeting. “I have something difficult to talk about.” The other person is then prepared to hear something difficult, and I can’t chicken out. I’ve already put it out there and I have to come through.Another way to make it easier to give constructive feedback is to give positive feedback regularly. If the only time employees hear from you is when they’ve messed up, they begin to dread interaction with you. Try giving positive feedback regularly for little things, or for things the employee is supposed to do. How great is it when employees do everything they’re supposed to do, on time and correctly? It’s wonderful! Point this out with positive feedback. When the boss notices both when an employee does something right and when an employee needs to improve, the boss becomes a coach, not just someone who enforces rules and sees mistakes.
Amber A. Johnson, chief communications officer and senior research associate at the Center for Values-Driven Leadership at Benedictine University.
Early in my career I was the editor of an alumni publication. In my first issue of our magazine, I missed a glaring typo in a photo caption. An executive at the university sent me a belittling message about my mistake. My boss at the time, Donna, asked me what I should learn from the experience and I answered her.Then she took a printed copy of his message, walked me to the document shredder, and held the button down as I fed the message into the machine. Her point was clear: We have to learn from feedback without taking it personally.Feedback shouldn’t be saved for a once-a-year review process. When team members expect regular feedback, it takes the fear out of the situation — no “deer in headlights” experiences where you catch someone by surprise.Whenever possible, feedback should be framed to influence the future, and delivered as positively as possible. “In the future, let’s focus on this as well as that,” instead of “Last week you failed to focus on this and that.” Nothing is more disheartening than to know you messed up, and not see the path for fixing it. Offer negative feedback privately, and positive feedback publicly.
Chris Powell, CEO of BlackbookHR, which helps companies manage employee engagement.
One of the most important things about giving feedback is how often you do it. Feedback that happens once a year isn’t going to be very helpful — how can you improve on something you did six months ago? If something needs a course correction, the time to mention it is when you see it. That way, the employee’s experience is fresh in their mind, and they can make the necessary improvement immediately. If you’re giving positive feedback the employee will focus on what they were doing right, and reinforce their decisions.Of course, you don’t want this to turn into micro-managing. If you find yourself giving an employee a lot of feedback on how to improve their work, it may be a signal that they need some extra training or are in the wrong role. Try to look at things objectively and see if the suggestions you’re making are constructive and useful to the employee.Looking for ways to improve your feedback skills or other leadership skills? Contact us to learn about our leadership development and coaching offerings.Success Labs is a leadership development and management consulting firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For more than 25 years, our expert team of consultants has worked with hundreds of companies to explore their business potential and improve their company and cultural performance. Contact us to get proactive about your people strategy.