What are the best practices for giving feedback to delegated tasks?

It's impossible to improve without feedback. The better the feedback, the greater the chance for improvement. Everyone underestimates the power of observing and reflecting. One of my favorite client relationships (and friendships) began with me saying: "I notice that you apologize for chiming in almost every time you speak up in a group, and then you rush through what you're saying." She was shocked as she started to notice it herself. It gave her the foundation to transform her executive presence. That was almost four years ago. Since then, we've helped her redefine her company's business model, secure funding, and accomplish lots of other cool business milestones. But she still points back to that simple observation as life-changing.

My extensive experience has informed me that getting teammates to buy-in to leadership vision and organizational goals/objectives is crucial in empowering teammates and getting them to cultivate personal responsibility and accountability facets. Once buy-in is secured, the leader can focus on strategic and creative tasks because teammates now drive the achievement of organizational goals/objectives. Leveraging leadership to establish a culture of ownership, promotes teammates adding value as they recognize the leader has a vested interest in their success both within and outside the organization.

Of course, feedback is critical. It needs to be done well, needs to be timely, and needs to be future-oriented. It's also 1 of many ingredients of performance management along with clear OKR, clear expectations, training, one-on-ones, coaching, delegation, and most importantly, and environment of trust.

In my experience, people assume they give feedback all the time, but the feedback isn't reaching the receivers because they have neglected to follow the feedback formula. Giving feedback is about "feeding back" the action you observed and the impact it had. I noticed you [action] which led to [impact]. You can give both affirmative and constructive feedback with this formula so people know what to keep doing and where they should adjust course. If your feedback does not follow this formula, you are probably sharing praise, critique, evaluation or advice. While praise and critique are never helpful, evaluation and advice can be clarifying when used in moderation. Well structured feedback is a better tool for learning and development.

This is extremely important. One of the biggest pitfalls I've seen is that leaders do not ask how their employees would like to receive feedback before they need to deliver it. Highly effective leaders ask employees how they would like to receive feedback during the onboarding process and take notes. Some employees want immediate feedback, while others like to schedule a meeting. To be inclusive of different types of employees, recording employee preferences will help the manager's delivery and employees' receiving of feedback be a more pleasant and inclusive experience for all.

I believe it’s important to have a variety of feedback techniques to ensure your team don’t become familiar with the single style you use. In this situation, they know what’s coming. Instead, use a variety of feedback styles that address the positives and negatives, but with varying techniques.

I agree, but I have found that people are not likely to absorb that positive feedback if it's immediately followed by a push. It's more effective to give clear, affirmative feedback all the time. This enables you to give direct, timely constructive feedback without adding fluff to soften the blow. I'd shoot for a 6:1 ratio of positive to push feedback so that people feel empowered and seen versus critiqued and challenged all the time. If you have not given much affirmative feedback in awhile, your constructive feedback is more likely to feel like an attack, instead of the caring guidance you intended.

Receiving negative feedback can be challenging, but it's important to learn how to receive it well. Remember that the feedback is about something you did or didn't do; it's not an attack on who you are as a person. We can learn a lot from our mistakes if we don't go into a shame spiral over them. Listen carefully and be sure you understand specifically what you can do better. Write it down so you remember for the next time. And take care to stay in your body by focusing on your breath. Breathe slowly, in through your nose and out through your mouth.