Leadership Handout Series

GIVING EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK

Are you letting issues boil inside you or are you using proper feedback strategies when dealing with others? One of a leader’s responsibilities is to create and utilize a forum for open, constructive communication in which feedback is one important aspect.

Feedback is communicating to a member or group how their behavior has affected us or other people. It is the information that flows between people that has to do with their interaction in the here and now. Effective feedback:

1. can be heard by the receiver;
2. keeps the relationship intact, open, and healthy;
3. and validates the feedback process in future interactions.

Effective feedback, both positive and constructive, is helpful to others. When you give feedback you are offering valuable information that will be useful to another person making decisions about how to behave. Also, feedback allows us to build and maintain closeness with others.

Feedback is not criticism — criticism is evaluative while feedback is descriptive. Evaluation is difficult to work with constructively. Feedback provides the individual with information that can be used in performing personal evaluation.

Further, feedback does not assume that the giver is totally right and the receiver wrong. Instead, it is an invitation to interactions in relationships which we want to have duration and importance in our lives.

Characteristics of Effective Feedback

1. It is specific rather that general. Be constructively descriptive with your feedback and not judgmental. For instance, to be told that one is “dominating” will probably not be as useful as to be told that “just now you were not listening to what the others said. I felt I had to agree with your arguments or face attack from you.”
2. It is focused on behavior rather than on the person. It is important that we refer to what a person does rather than to what we think or imagine s/he is. Thus we might say that a person “talked more than anyone else in this meeting” rather than s/he is “a loudmouth.” The former allows for the possibility of change; the latter implies a fixed personality trait.
3. It takes into account the needs of the receiver of the feedback. Feedback can be destructive when it serves only our own needs and fails to consider the needs of the person on the receiving end. It should be given to help, not to hurt. We often give feedback because it makes us feel better or gives us a psychological advantage.
4. It is directed toward behavior which the receiver can do something about. Frustration is only increased when a person is reminded of some shortcomings over which s/he has no control or a physical characteristic which s/he can do nothing about.
5. It is solicited, rather than imposed. Feedback is most useful when the receiver has formulated the kind of question which those observing him/her can answer when asked.
6. It involves sharing of information rather than giving advice. By sharing information, we leave a person free to decide in accordance with his/her own goals, needs, etc. When we give advice we tell a person what to do, and to some degree take away the person’s freedom to decide for himself/herself.
7. It is well-timed. In general, immediate feedback is most useful (depending, of course, on the person’s readiness to hear it’ support available from others’ etc.). The reception and use of feedback involves many possible emotional reactions. Excellent feedback presented at an inappropriate time may do more harm than good.
8. It involves the amount of information the receiver can use rather than the amount we would like to give. Sometimes we provide more feedback than the person may be able to adequately process. Failure to provide persons with the appropriate amount of feedback may limit or hinder how effectively they use that feedback. When we give more than can be used, we are more often than not satisfying some need of our own rather than helping the other person.
9. It concerns what is said or done, or how it is said or done, not why. Telling a person what his/her motivations or intentions are more often than not tends to alienate the person; and contributes to a climate of resentment, suspicion, and distrust. It will not contribute to learning or development. It is also dangerous to assume that we know why a person says or does something, or what s/he “really” means, or what s/he is “really” trying to accomplish. If we are uncertain of his/her motives or intent; this uncertainty in and of itself is feedback, and should be revealed.
10. It is checked to insure clear communication. One way of checking the feedback given is to have the receiver try to repeat or rephrase the feedback s/he has received to see if it corresponds to what the sender has in mind. No matter what the intent, feedback is often threatening and thus subject to considerable distortion or misinterpretation.

A leader who has mastered active listening skills will be able to provide effective feedback in an open, constructive manner to his/her group members.