Leadership Pit Stop:
Business Leadership Coaching on the Go

Giving Feedback

As a manager, you can’t expect your employees to raise their level of performance until you’ve made them aware of the gap between how they currently do things and what you expect of them. They need specific and constructive feedback to give them a clear picture of what they need to do differently. The Situation-Behavior-Impact framework is an easy tool to use when preparing and delivering feedback to an employee. It disciplines you to:

• focus on the specific situation you want to bring to the employee’s attention;
• describe what you heard the employee say or see him or her do in this situation;
• explain the actual or potential impact his or her behavior had, or could have, on co-workers, managers, or customers.

You should also use this framework to provide your employees with positive feedback. This positive reinforcement will increase the likelihood of the employee repeating the desirable behavior under similar circumstances in the future.

What is often missing when managers give feedback, whether positive or constructive, is the impact his or her behavior had on others. This can be the most valuable piece of the feedback because we all have blind spots. Add to this the tendency for people to think “that was not my intention” excuses their behavior and it’s easy to see why all of us need this type of feedback to raise our level of performance. A true professional knows how to approach a particular situation so that his or her intent matches their impact. As a manager, you play a critical role in helping each of your employees gain this ability by helping them “connect the dots” between their behavior and their impact on others. Once they see this connection, they’ll be more likely to be open to exploring different approaches to achieve better results.