One of your most important responsibilities you have as a team leader is developing others, and feedback is one of the most effective ways to do this. However, team leaders often argue that it is too hard to find the time to give feedback and are reluctant to provide negative feedback. However, over two-thirds of employees believe their performance would improve if their managers provided more of these developmental opportunities. Therefore, not surprisingly, a lack of regular and helpful feedback is one of the reasons that people leave their job.
With the challenges of finding and retaining talent, can you neglect giving regular feedback? This article recognises some of the challenges for team leaders in giving feedback and offers three ways to help make these more engaging development conversations.
Make Feedback Everyday
Feedback is most effective when delivered informally in the moment, which is as practically close to the situation where you observed the behaviour. By communicating in the moment, the person can more accurately reflect on the feedback in context. The challenge is finding the time to prepare what you want to say for the feedback to be effective; which creates a challenge for leaders in preparing and responding to situations as they emerge.
Making time in the moment is a call to give feedback as close to the point of experience, but also recognise that this might not always be possible. To help navigate this tension, a leader might use the moment to signal the desire to offer feedback later in the day. However, when communicating this intention, providing some context to manage a person's need for safety and certainty. Please don't leave them hanging, people will inevitably think the worst. An example might be, "Can we chat later to discuss learnings from today's meeting and how you might develop your approach for next time?".
Preparing for the feedback conversation, take a moment to distinguish feedback that is objective — observed through measurable data or facts versus subjective feedback — subject to opinion, feelings or experiences. For example, objective feedback might be that they delivered the presentation late, and your perspective might be that the order of the slides in the presentation was not the best way to tell the story. Beware of presenting your opinions as facts; this can foster defensiveness in the feedback receiver, who might disagree with your view. Therefore, when delivering subjective feedback, make it tentative and invite the other person to share their viewpoint.
Making time to prepare can be a genuine challenge for leaders, but it is also a choice and can also be a defensive response to avoid what they might perceive as a difficult conversation. In these situations, leaders can find themselves putting off the conversation or forming a triangle by sharing frustrations with another person instead of having the feedback conversation directly. Let's face it, triangles waste time; a leader could better use this time to prepare and deliver the feedback directly. To help you get used to delivering feedback in the moment, start small or create an expectation in the team by making feedback a habit. An example of a habit could be that at the end of a client meeting, there is a debrief where feedback is shared alongside aligning on next steps.
Make Feedback a Dialogue.
Providing effective feedback involves dialogue with the person to understand their perspective and how they have interpreted and made sense of what you have just described. Try asking at the end of delivering feedback, "what have you taken away from this conversation". It is a great way to test for understanding and you'd be surprised how often their takeaway is different to your intention. It is a useful step assess if more time is needed to deepen their understanding. Creating a dialogue also involves being willing to adjusting your perspective and what action is required based on their response. Feedback, which includes the opportunity for a person to reflect on what they have just heard, is a more effective approach as it increases the likelihood they will act.
This raises a second challenge in providing feedback: being clear and direct while also being open to the other person's perspective and being willing to take a different perspective on the situation. This requires slowing down and asking yourself, "What else could be contributing to this situation that I might not have considered?"
As a leader, don't make delivering the feedback your measure of success. It can quickly become just another thing on a busy to-do list. With this mindset, we can quickly become task-focused and lose sight of the person on the receiving end. Feedback is a collaborative process in which the person can choose how to respond. It's essential that they believe there is an openness to explore their perspective while keeping sight of the purpose of the conversation. Ensure they understand your intention is for the person to grow and succeed in their role. By addressing these dynamics, the person is less likely to perceive the feedback conversation as a threat, and this helps reduce the possibility of someone responding defensively.
Make Feedback about Future Growth.
A growth mindset is a concept developed by psychologist Carol Dweck, and it profoundly influences how we perceive and handle feedback. The core idea of a growth mindset is the belief that a person's abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and hard work. This perspective contrasts with a fixed mindset, where abilities are viewed as static and unchangeable.
Feedback recieved by someone in a growth mindset is more likely to result in a change in behaviour. A feedback conversation that cultivates a growth mindset focuses on the future and recognises that persistence is needed to succeed and helps the person identify strategies to improve.
In contrast the way feedback is often delivered in organisations, can reinforce a fixed mindset. With corporate culture being outcome-focused, it is easy to deliver feedback that is evaluative and focuses on past performance: feedback on why it was a good or bad presentation, or reasons why we won or lost a project.
In a fixed mindset, feedback can be viewed as an attack on our self-worth, compared to a growth mindset, which is approached with openness and curiosity and is seen as a resource to help us improve. When leaders consciously cultivate a growth mindset, they are intentional about the language they use and how they frame feedback.
When giving feedback with a growth mindset, the leader highlights the importance of effort and effective strategies rather than innate ability. This can help reduce the recipient's fear of failure and promote a more experimental and learning-focused approach. Being conscious of language; for example, instead of delivering constructive or negative feedback, frame feedback as a future development opportunity.
People with a growth mindset are more likely to tailor feedback to the recipient's current level of skills and understanding, making it more actionable and less overwhelming. Leaders provide feedback that recipients can use as stepping stones to develop strategies and chart future progress. They avoid framing feedback in black-and-white terms, such as being good or bad at something, rather finding ways to provide feedback as ways to continually improve and get better.
When we frame feedback in right or wrong terms, it can put a person into a threat state. The brain treats physical threats in the same way as social threats. This threat state can lead to the person becoming defensive or withdraw. Instead, when we focus feedback on opportunities to grow and improve it is more likely to trigger a state of readiness to hear and act on the feedback.
In summary, when fostering commitment and engagement from employees, no behaviour is more potent than when leaders show respect. Treating people respectfully is more important to employees than any other form of recognition. By making feedback an everyday conversation that promotes ways to get better, we show respect for a person's desire to grow and develop. Also, respecting how hard it can be to receive feedback and change behaviour.
Leaders show respect by communicating openly and honestly, valuing differences, and being genuinely committed to helping each person in their team grow and succeed in their role. They can also show respect by making time in the moment to provide feedback, bringing a growth mindset that focuses on developing future potential rather than evaluating past performance. Making feedback a two-way dialogue helps create a shared understanding and by supporting the person to make sense of and internalise the feedback. This feedback approach can help strengthen the intrinsic motivation to act and deepen employee engagement.