The Art of Leadership - Giving Assessments and Feedback

It is part of my leadership philosophy that I assume that people come to work to do a good job.  Most employee’s work takes up the majority of their waking hours and I just don’t believe many people set out each morning to do a bad job!  Your role as a leader is to coach your staff to be as successful and productive as possible.  Giving assessments and feedback is a key part of that coaching.

I don’t see giving feedback as an annual event.  With my direct reports I schedule a weekly (at least) 1:1 meeting to discuss whatever we need to talk about.  I also use this time to ask for feedback (what can I do to help you?) and to give regular feedback. 

Asking for feedback on what you have done or can do for your employee is a very powerful way to open up communication channels.  It shows that you trust them and appreciate them and their work.

I try to give regular feedback in these regular 1:1s.  It can be as simple as saying well done and thank you for a good piece of work.  It can also be an opportunity to coach the person in how they might do something better.  I find it is often much more effective to pose a question such as “How can we make these reports more useful, highlighting the areas we need to take action on?”  than criticising the work that has been done “I don’t like this report you’ve done.”  If someone is clearly struggling then ask them about it and work together to come up with an approach to address any issues or even find some other work that is more suited to their skills.

There is a place for formal assessments too, to provide documentation on how someone is doing and to feed into HR processes around ratings, bonuses and pay awards.  If you have been providing regular feedback then the assessment should not contain anything particularly new or unexpected.   

For both feedback and assessments, I think your choice of language is crucial.  If something needs improving, avoid negative statements such as “You didn’t do xxx well.” Or “Your communication with your co-workers is weak.”  These types of statements are judgemental, demotivating and don’t point to a solution.  Instead use phrases that look to the future and explain why something is important.  Use phrases such as “I’d like to see you improve the level of detail in xxxx as this will help yyyy with their work.” or “You need to take more time to discuss your ideas with xxxx and yyyy.  Their buy in and support is crucial for us to move this project forward.”

In summary, providing regular feedback and assessments to your staff is a crucial part of leadership.  Take time to seek feedback on yourself and how you can be a better leader.  Be careful in the words you use when seeking changes or improvements in someone’s performance.  Much better to use forward looking phrases than blunt criticism.