Management Coaching: How and When to Give Feedback

A number of my clients, small business owners and managers mostly, have asked me for coaching on how and when to provide feedback or constructive criticism for their staff. This seems to be an area where many people in small business leadership really struggle. The question I hear from owners and managers is something like this:

“When I see something that worries me or upsets me, how do I call attention to it in the moment and provide feedback, without coming across as judgmental or overly critical, and without making people feel like they’re being attacked?”.

Listen up, all you owners and managers out there. The answer is in how you relate to your staff. In other words, it has less to do with exactly what you say and when you say it, and more to do with how you relate to your people. Think about how you would talk to someone who’s been a solid partner for years…someone who has fought along side you through many professional battles; who has both succeeded and failed with you. Someone with whom you don’t always agree, but who has earned your respect.

How would you give feedback to that person in a similar situation? The biggest difference is that you probably wouldn’t have to think about it at all. You would have a relationship with that person, based on all you’ve been through together, that would provide an empowering context for anything you needed to say. You wouldn’t strategize about how to say something; you’d just say it in whatever way it occurs to you, and you’d clarify or explain if they didn’t seem to follow you.

One of the smartest things you can do to empower yourself as a leader is to create a culture around you where corrective feedback and constructive criticism are expected, welcomed and valued. You can start creating this kind of culture by grounding yourself in a fundamental context of respect and commitment to the growth and success of your people and your organization.

Standing in that place of respect and commitment to people, be straight with them. Say what’s on your mind and don’t worry about how it comes across…the way you would with someone who has been a real partner. If you relate to people that way, and you show them that there’s room for correction and feedback…that the culture of your business actually supports and encourages correction and feedback…and that there’s nothing wrong with, and nothing personal about communicating in this way, then they’ll learn to be your partners.

If you hold back or worry about how you’re coming across, you’ll teach the people who work for you that they need to hold back and worry about how they come across…you’ll build that struggling and worrying right into the culture, instead of building partnership and communication.

The bottom line here is this: You’re on a mission. Your business is a mission designed to accomplish something in the world. When you’re on a mission, there isn’t always time to measure every word and carefully consider everyone’s feelings. You have to tell people what to do, and trust that they’re big enough, mature enough, and capable enough to jump up and get in action.

If your house catches on fire, your mission is to get your family out of the burning house. You’re not going to be cautious and polite about it. You’re not going to hesitate to tell your family to get out. You would easily risk coming off as rude and controlling, knowing that lives depended on your clear communication. Your work is no different. It’s urgent. Any organization requires urgent and powerful communication in order to thrive in a competitive marketplace.

Your people are working for you because they want to be on a mission and they want to succeed. Practice relating to them as such. Keep your eye on how you relate to your people vs. how they relate to you. Do you relate to them as small, frail little creatures in need of emotional bolstering, or do you relate to them as confident, competent professionals serving a mission of critical importance?

As long as you’re coming from a context of respect and commitment (to both personal and organizational growth and success), give as much feedback as you can, so your people can learn quickly, grow professionally, and be successful.



Management Coaching: How and When to Give Feedback - To learn more about this author, visit Erek Ostrowski's Website.

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