How to deliver better feedback to your team

Leaders are often told to give feedback to their teams.

This is good advice, because without feedback, it can seem as if we are “flying blind”.

That is, we’re unaware of our issues or shortcomings, or areas where we may be doing better than we think.

Our teams can only develop and improve if we take the time to deliver feedback, so they know what they’re doing well and what they need to work on.

So in this post, I’m going to discuss some ways to deliver better feedback to your team, to they can use it to their advantage… and you can have a better team!

Why feedback is ineffective, or doesn’t happen at all

I’ve found that feedback given in many situations is pretty poor.

It is often vague (“Good job!”), provided too late (“I’m unhappy with that thing you did last year”) or provided in a negative or unhelpful way (“You’re really not very good at your job”).

Thoughtful leaders often like to be nice, so they also may fall into the trap of focusing mainly on positive feedback.

This is nice and encouraging, but doesn’t usually help people improve.

There is also the issue of credibility.

Why should your team take your feedback on board? Do they believe you’re the best source of the feedback they need? And do you have positive intentions for them?

All of these factors can provide barriers to giving and receiving feedback effectively, which we’d like to remove for our teams.

Learn More:  How to Accept Feedback in a Useful Way.

How to deliver better feedback to your team

Leaders need to deliver effective feedback, but they also need to feel more confident to provide it.

Here are some ideas to position yourself to deliver better feedback for your team.

1. Work on your credibility

We need to deliver feedback better, but we also need people to receive, accept and hopefully act on it.

One factor that can stop people from accepting and acting on feedback is the perception of a lack of credibility of the person delivering it.

When assessing credibility, consider the following factors:

• Knowledge: Do you understand what it is that you’re providing feedback about? If it involved technical details, are you the right person to speak about them?
• Skills & experience: Do you have the skills and experience related to the feedback you’re providing? You don’t need to be good at everything, but it helps to have experience in the domain that you’re discussing.
• Qualifications: Are you perceived as qualified to deliver this feedback? This includes formal qualifications, certifications or education that makes you appear to be a credible source of information.

It’s important to note that credibility is largely based on perception.

You might be an entirely credible source of feedback, but if nobody believes it, then your feedback may be ignored.

Are there things you need to do to improve your credibility in the domain or subject in which you’re delivering feedback?

Or does certain feedback need to be provided by someone else, if you’re not a credible source for a particular topic?

2. Improve your familiarity

People are more likely to respond to feedback that is provided by somebody who is familiar with the person and the work that they do.

By familiar, I mean that the person is often able to see how the person works, behaves and can see the results of their work.

Some leaders are in the position where they don’t see their teams in action every day. This means they may not be as familiar as they’d like to be with the person and their work.

If you receive feedback from someone who doesn’t really observe what you do or how you do it, why would you accept that feedback?

To improve familiarity, consider:

• Making a point of being around your team more often where they’re working
• Consistently reviewing the work that they deliver; and
• Getting to know the team member on a more personal level, so you have a better understanding of their attitude and how they operate.

It is entirely possible that in your role, it’s hard to see your people in action every day.

Therefore, you may need to enlist the help of other people (who do have closer contact with your team members) to provide information to you, or provide the feedback for you.

Consider a leader who manages a team of security staff. The leader is often in a central office, but his team members are out at different sites on security patrol.

In this situation, the leader is going to need to get more creative about how they gather information to provide better feedback.

Learn More: 10 Simple & Effective Tips For Giving Feedback.

3. Understand the outcome you want

Some leaders will deliver feedback that is hard to act upon.

The feedback may not be specific enough, or could simply be about what is going badly, without referring to the improvement required.

As such, to deliver better feedback, be sure to understand what outcome you’re hoping to achieve as a result of providing this feedback.

This includes considering the improvement you’d like to see, or the change in behaviour, or the difference in the result of some work.

If you’re struggling to identify this, it’s possible that your feedback is not fully-formed enough to be useful for the person receiving it.

Deliver better feedback, to help you and your team

Delivering better feedback can only help your team grow and improve.

And it’s not surprising that this will help you, too.

Being more thoughtful in the way you deliver feedback will help your team members to accept your feedback.

Acceptance is necessary for your people to act on your feedback, otherwise it’s possible your feedback will have no effect!

How do you deliver better feedback? What other ideas do you incorporate? Let me and all the thoughtful leaders know in the comments below!