Effectively Providing Feedback

As the awareness and application of leadership coaching grows, so does the use of giving and receiving feedback. Feedback can be a very powerful and beneficial tool for personal and professional growth.

Getting feedback is an opportunity to learn about what you are doing well and what opportunities there are for growth. In turn, giving feedback is a manager’s chance to share with their employees what they are doing well and opportunities for improvement.

However, as great as the idea of having a feedback conversations is, and despite the fact that employees need and want feedback, sometimes, feedback and constructive criticism can be hard to digest. That is why it’s critical for managers to be able to provide feedback in a way that employees can hear, digest, and act upon the information.

When effectively presented, quality feedback is seen as an opportunity to grow and build upon an already strong foundation. If poorly presented, that same feedback can damage egos, impact productivity, and potentially reduce employee engagement.

Chances are, even when you effectively deliver feedback that requires someone to change, they’re going to resist at first. This is perfectly natural. However, it doesn’t make the feedback any less important. It just takes time for people to process information so they can adapt accordingly.

Since this process can’t be rushed, managers need to know how to back up and let things progress on their own. But to do this, it’s important to know what each step of accepting feedback looks like and what’s required of employees at that time.