9 Ways to Give Effective Feedback as a Manager

Adding to the difficulty is the fact that it involves a lot of emotions and feelings. You’re trying not to offend anyone but at the same time you want to be direct and honest.

So, how do you give feedback to help get the outcome you need?

Here are nine ways to give feedback as a manager.

This type of feedback involves talking to the employee in question directly by pulling them aside or talking to them in private as part of your scheduled one-on-one meetings. It creates a safe space for more open conversations, especially when it relates to vulnerable topics.

Remember to make this a two-way conversation where you express your opinions by giving the other party a chance to ask follow-up questions, and ultimately have more discussions. The last thing you want to do is lecture the employee and treat them like a brick wall or, worse, a child.

There are situations where you may notice positive or negative behaviours or actions and you need to let the offending employee know about it. Perhaps this person doesn’t report directly reporting to you; they instead might be part of another team with another manager.

During these situations, you could approach the employee’s manager and give them the feedback to reach them promptly. You could also send an email to the employee with their manager on CC. This is a good approach to use when you recognise good work and want to make sure it gets noticed by their boss.

A popular approach for giving feedback is the sandwich method, where you slip in negative feedback in between two positive ones. This type of feedback is useful during performance review meetings or interacting with an employee who you know is sensitive to negative feedback. It helps to set a relaxed atmosphere for having serious discussions.

Overall, the sandwich method helps to make people more receptive to negative feedback and ultimately helps them come away from the conversation with a good feeling.

Your feedback to employees must be constructive to help them understand what they’re doing wrong. For example, instead of saying ‘You do not communicate well in meetings’, you could be more constructive and say ‘I noticed that when you are talking in meetings, you tend to digress from the actual topic at hand’. The latter helps paint the picture of what exactly the person is doing wrong and immediately take corrective action.

There’s a big difference between giving feedback based on behaviour and giving feedback based on personal traits. Consider these two examples:

The feedback that focuses on behaviour is the second. You’re specific with what problem you are noticing in the person. You describe why it’s detrimental to the team and, finally, highlight why it has to be corrected. This is a better approach instead of making vague accusations, which are not helpful for anyone.

Focusing on behaviour emphasises a specific behaviour that should change in the future and is less threatening to a person expecting to hear comments about their traits.

In this approach, an employee is given feedback based on a reaction to something they did. It could be as simple as ‘You did great in the meeting’, ‘It was a great presentation’ or constructive criticism such as ‘It was great what you told us, but next time we only need to hear X, Y and Z’ or ‘This approach seems to work better — what do you think?’

You should deliver this type of feedback on time. As soon as you notice something, take immediate action.

Group feedback is when give feedback to your entire team in a group setting.

A sensible manager will immediately start to figure out what are the strengths and weaknesses of their team. Focus the feedback based on these observations. This is best performed in the context of team meetings, daily stand-ups, retrospective meetings, planning meetings, all-hands meetings and other similar situations.

You want to be well-prepared for the meeting with data, agenda items, visuals, positive feedback and improvement areas. Usually, these meetings involve whiteboards and slide decks. Teams brainstorm ideas and collectively come up with solutions based on your feedback. You give the feedback to the team and facilitate the discussion.

One way to do this is by combining negative feedback with empathy. This involves carefully listening to what your employee has to say, not interrupting when they’re speaking; being fully present with them; taking a personal interest in their growth. All this while also paying attention to their body language, tone of voice and facial expressions while delivering negative feedback.

The goal is to make the employee understand why they have to improve in something and develop an action plan with them to make the necessary improvements. After the meeting, they should have a positive outlook and a clear idea of what is expected. The last thing you could do is to be too friendly and communicate poorly.

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