By Jane Merrifield | Substack
(Jane is my more competent daughter and a sales executive with Cisco. Because she writes on different aspects of mastering leadership skills, her blogs fit with this sites’ theme of the underlying meta-skill: mastering the process of mastery. We all have to continuously – learn, unlearn, and relearn – to stay gainfully employed and serving the greater good.
With AI, you can google/gemini “what are guidelines for X skill” and get more than you need. So, next-gen, how-to blogs need to blend contextual examples combined with AI prompts for generic advice. Note how Jane has both personalized her advice and included an AI prompt.
Onward to greater mastery in all of the soft skills that matter! Bruce )
Why Direct Feedback is an Act of Kindness
A lot of people naturally shy away from giving direct feedback. If you find yourself hesitating to speak up, don’t beat yourself up. It actually contradicts deep-seated evolutionary human tendencies. We naturally crave community and want to get along well with those around us. In ancient times, humans didn’t survive by constantly calling out reasons why the people in their tribe needed to improve.
While there is an immense amount to explore on the broader topic of giving and receiving feedback, I wanted to focus this post on a couple of specific nuggets regarding feedback that I find myself thinking about and returning to often.
Do I Have Food in My Teeth?
We’ve all heard the corporate cliché that “feedback is a gift,” but let’s make it concrete. Think of giving feedback exactly like telling someone they have food stuck in their teeth. If you notice someone has food in their teeth, you should tell them right away!
I know I personally have experienced that sudden, mortifying realization of discovering something in my teeth hours after being at a party. You’re immediately left wondering how many other people noticed and simply chose to say nothing.
If you see an opportunity for someone on your team to improve and you choose silence, you are doing them a disservice every single day. Chances are that other people around them are noticing the exact same flaw, but because no one speaks up, they remain completely blind to it.
Furthermore, giving feedback early and often provides a massive benefit to you as the leader. It results in smaller, low-stakes conversations. When you wait, issues inevitably pile up over a longer stretch of time. By the time you finally sit down to address it, you are forced into a heavy, multi-dimensional conversation that leaves the receiver feeling ambushed and blindsided. It is a horrible feeling for them, and it makes the conversation incredibly difficult for you. Hit the feedback immediately and don’t let things pile up.
The Trap of Harboring Resentment
When I was early in my leadership career, I fell victim to sweeping small things under the rug. For example, someone showed up 5 minutes late to a meeting without a heads-up. I chose not to say anything.
But when that similar behavior kept happening over time, I would start to get really annoyed. That approach simply isn’t fair to the person. They had no idea that I found their behavior to be unacceptable, while I was sitting across from them harboring quiet, growing resentment. Learning to embrace immediate clarity prevents this trap entirely.
Delivery is Everything
When someone starts a conversation with the phrase, “Can I give you some feedback?” your internal fight-or-flight mode is instantly activated. There is something inherently jarring about that word. It puts people on the defensive before you even share your thoughts.
To lower those cognitive guards, I try to frame the conversation in a completely different way. Here are two examples you can test out with your team this week:
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Framework 1: “Hey, you have a really bright future at this company and I have an idea as to how you could have an greater impact.”
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Framework 2: “I’m always looking for ways to help my team grow and strengthen their brand within our organization, can I share an idea I had for you?”
By shifting the language from an implied threat into a deliberate investment in their personal brand and long-term impact, you transform feedback from a jarring critique into an actionable next step.
3 More Tactics to Level Up Your Feedback
At the end of the day, your goal as a leader is to build people up, not beat them down. How you phrase your feedback dictates how it is received, and it sets the tone for your relationship moving forward. If you want to make sure your guidance actually lands, here are three practical tactics to add to your toolkit:
1. Give a Heads-Up (No Ambushes)
Instead of dropping feedback on someone out of the blue, let them know ahead of time that you want to share an idea with them on how they can improve their influence. Try saying something like: “Hey, in our sync tomorrow, I have a thought I’d love to share with you on how you can grow your influence in this next project.” This gives them the breathing room to show up to the conversation mentally prepared, open, and ready to collaborate.
2. Put Yourself on Equal Footing
People often assume their leaders are bulletproof and have never struggled with the same challenges. To break this down, share a quick story of a time you stumbled with the exact same issue and how you navigated it. Meeting them on equal footing takes the sting out of the correction and reframes you from an “evaluator” to a “partner in growth.”
3. Workshop It With AI
If you are struggling with a particularly sensitive situation and aren’t sure how to deliver the message constructively, don’t guess. Open up your favorite AI tool and tell it everything you feel about the situation, unfiltered. Then, ask it to help you format your raw thoughts in a supportive, constructive way. Workshopping your message beforehand ensures your emotions don’t get in the way of a great coaching moment.
Even with the best frameworks in hand, giving feedback is rarely easy. It requires courage, practice, and a willingness to be uncomfortable for a brief moment in service of someone else’s long-term growth.
I’d love to hear from you:
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What is the single thing you struggle with most when it comes to giving feedback?
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For those of you who have struggled with this and made progress, what is the one shift in perspective, habit, or strategy that helped you become better at it?