I’ve been a manager for about 11 years now and a team lead for a few years before that. Two of the most important leadership responsibilities, in my opinion, are setting clear expectations and giving feedback.

When I’ve mentored new engineering managers and team leads, this is usually where they struggle most. I’ve seen countless managers struggle to give feedback and feel unsure about how to do it effectively. I’ve also repeatedly seen the consequences of missing feedback, how one person’s behavior can sink a whole team. Across all the companies I’ve worked at, only one has offered any kind of feedback training. I’ve read and learned a lot by myself and by experience. Here are some of my tips and thoughts, because feedback can be an incredibly valuable gift if done right.

Different kinds of feedback

When you hear “feedback” most people think of negative or “constructive” feedback. I think it’s important to give positive feedback when someone is doing something right. Everyone deserves to feel appreciated at work and to know what is valued.

Most people try to do the right thing, but without guidance it’s easy to put effort into the wrong areas. If someone consistently gets praise for being a hero and handling urgent issues, they might not spend time solving the underlying issues that cause them. I’ve seen junior engineers get praise for organizing meetings and social activities, but not for their actual coding. That can lead them to do more of that instead and not continue to hone their engineering skills.

Do you really care?

I find that there’s a huge difference between wanting to give feedback because you’re annoyed with someone and want to put them into place, or wanting to give feedback because you genuinely care and want to help that person. The best feedback comes from a place of caring and helps the other person grow. It’s much easier to listen to feedback when you know that the person cares about you.

I once had to give feedback to a developer who wasn’t performing up to expectations but had no idea. His team lead had been unhappy for quite some time but hadn’t mustered the courage to let him know and instead became bitter and irritated toward him. When I explained the situation to the developer and what was missing, he was very surprised. After thinking it over for a day or two, he came back to me and was grateful to finally understand why things had been tense between him and the team lead and he was highly motivated to improve. He knew that I would support and help him and we made a plan and started working on it.

In my experience, someone who is an underperformer might:

  • be completely stuck and panicked and not know what to do
  • be harassed by their team lead and not dare to ask for help
  • feel underappreciated and not even know that people are waiting for their tasks
  • have a terrible time in their personal life and have trouble focusing at work
  • be completely oblivious to the expectations and have no idea that they’re underperforming
  • focus on the wrong things because of confusing feedback and expectations in the past
  • be very unhappy at work but not be honest with themselves and should be looking for something else
Feedback conversation

How to give feedback

I strongly believe that there always is a reason for someone’s behavior – it might be a stupid reason, but there is always a reason. If you care about the person and are curious to find out why, I think there’s a higher chance of succeeding.

I like the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) framework. For me, it’s much more than a communication format; it’s an attitude toward others. NVC is a well-known method in conflict management. The format is: observation, feeling, needs, request. It’s much more than that, but for this blog post, the TL;DR is: state the objective facts, avoid judgments and labels, explain the consequences, and state your request clearly.

Compare: “You’re always late, you’re so disrespectful. You don’t care about your team’s productivity at all!”
With the better NVC approach: “You have been late to our team meetings three times in a row now (observation), this disrupts the meeting and makes me frustrated (feeling). It’s important for me that we respect each other’s time (need). Could you please be on time in the future? (request)“

In NVC you always use a neutral observation, instead of an evaluation/judgement of the situation. “She has been late to three meetings this week” instead of labelling “She is always late to meetings”. “He was looking out the window and not engaging in the conversation” instead of “He doesn’t care about the team” (Maybe he was solving the problem in his head?)

Another popular, and very similar, format for feedback is Situation–Behavior–Impact (SBI):

  • Note the time and place in which a behavior occurred.
  • Describe the behavior, what you saw and heard.
  • Describe the impact the behavior had in terms of your thoughts, feelings or actions.

Both can, of course, also be used for positive feedback: “When I saw you spend time teaching our new colleague about our product and patiently explaining our roadmap yesterday, it made me very happy. It’s important to me that we make our new colleagues feel welcome and included. Thank you.”

It’s a quite simple format, so try it out. I often see managers and colleagues avoid saying anything to the person, and instead talk behind the person’s back and get more and more frustrated. Talk to them instead! Asking from a place of caring and with curiosity can do wonders.

Feedback loop

Chattys version of a feedback loop

Who should you give feedback to?

If it’s positive feedback and encouragement, you should give it to anyone and everyone. Your peers, your boss, your teammates, and other colleagues. I believe that we all want to be appreciated and noticed. If someone gives a great presentation at an All-hands, I often send a quick Slack message afterward, offering encouragement and telling them what I liked best. Even if praise can be uplifting, it’s more valuable when you point out concrete things that made it good (“You made your point very clearly. You had the right number of slides and great jokes. Your call to action was very motivating.”)
Many people aren’t comfortable being praised in public (we Swedes have Jantelagen after all), so some prefer positive feedback to be given in private.

If it’s constructive feedback and you’re not their team lead or manager: Do you have a basic level of trust with that person so there’s a chance they will take it to heart? Are you sure that you are right about the feedback? Sometimes feedback says more about the person giving it, than the person recieving it.
If you are the person’s manager and the behaviour is causing consequences, it’s always your responsibility. Constructive feedback should always be given in private. Don’t forget to give feedback to your manager as well, most managers get too little feedback.

Team

When to give feedback

I would recommend doing it as soon as possible. There have been many times when I’ve grabbed someone immediately after a meeting or situation. Waiting for 1–2 weeks or until the next 1:1 is too long. This is true for positive feedback as well, while the person still remembers what they were doing and can reflect on it. The only reason to wait is if you or the other person are upset and can’t have a calm, productive discussion.

Always make it clear that you will give feedback. Unless the feedback is urgent, say, “I have some feedback I would like to give you. Can I do it now?” The person could be having a terrible day and not be in a state to receive constructive feedback. Don’t trick them with “Do you have five minutes for a quick chat?” – that just creates paranoia around future ad hoc discussions. Always be clear about what it is about.

If you care, assume good intent and are curious to find out the other person’s view, you can solve really difficult situations. Good luck!

Let me know if this was helpful and I’ll continue with part two:
When not to give feedback, how to ask for feedback, how to facilitate feedback conversations in teams and more examples and tips.

Some links worth reading:

As always this blog post is manually written by me, without AI, so any grammatical or spelling errors are my own.