Leadership & Communication · Feedback, difficult conversations and conflict · lesson 4 of 21 · 13 min

Giving feedback that helps

Feedback is a gift, if it is usable

Feedback helps people see their impact and improve. But much feedback fails: it is vague ("be more proactive"), too late (in an annual review), or delivered in a way that triggers defensiveness. Effective feedback is specific, timely, balanced and focused on behaviour, not personality.

The SBI model

The Situation–Behaviour–Impact model (associated with the Center for Creative Leadership) is a simple structure:

Situation: when and where it happened.
Behaviour: what the person did or said (observable, not interpreted).
Impact: the effect on you, the team, the client or results.

Then add a request or a question.

| Weak feedback | SBI feedback | |---|---| | "You are not a team player." | "In this morning's planning meeting (S), you interrupted Omar twice while he was explaining the budget (B). He stopped contributing, and we missed his input on the supplier risk (I). Can we talk about how to make sure everyone is heard?" | | "Great presentation!" | "In the client pitch yesterday (S), you opened with the client's own sales data and a clear recommendation (B). The client's director said it was the clearest pitch they had seen, and they asked for a proposal (I). Keep doing that." |

Reinforcing and redirecting feedback

Give both kinds. Reinforcing feedback tells people what to keep doing and is often neglected; people need to know what good looks like. Redirecting feedback helps people change. Many experienced leaders aim to give considerably more reinforcing than redirecting feedback while ensuring that redirecting feedback is never avoided.

Avoid the "feedback sandwich" (praise–criticism–praise) as a habit: people learn to discount the praise and may miss the message. Be direct and kind instead.

Timing and setting

Give feedback soon after the event, while details are fresh.
Give redirecting feedback privately; reinforcing feedback can be public if the person is comfortable.
Check the person's state: if they are upset or rushed, schedule a better time soon.
Ask permission when appropriate: "Can I share an observation about the client call?"

A feedback conversation step by step

Open: "I want to share some feedback about Tuesday's meeting. Is now a good time?"
Deliver SBI: facts, not judgments.
Pause and ask: "How did you see it?" Listen; you may be missing context.
Agree the way forward: "What could you do differently next time?" Add your suggestions if needed.
Close with support: "I'll help by giving you time to speak first in the next meeting."
Follow up: notice and reinforce improvement.

Feedback across cultures

Directness varies widely across cultures and individuals. In some contexts, direct negative feedback in front of others causes serious loss of face; in others, indirect feedback may be missed entirely. In multicultural teams spanning Pakistan, the Gulf, the UK and the US, agree norms openly: "In this team, we give feedback privately, specifically and promptly." Adjust your delivery to the person while keeping the message clear.

Feedback upward and to peers

Feedback is not only for managers to give. Use SBI with peers and managers too, framed around shared goals: "In the steering meeting (S), when the timeline was presented without the testing phase (B), I think the sponsor left with an unrealistic expectation (I). Would it help if I prepared a slide on testing for next time?"

Worked example

Illustrative. Tom, a team lead at a fictional agency in Manchester, had avoided telling a talented designer, Priya, that her missed internal deadlines were delaying client work. When he finally raised it in an annual review, she was upset: "Why didn't you tell me months ago?" Tom changed his approach: weekly check-ins with prompt SBI feedback. When Priya explained she was being pulled into urgent requests from another team, they agreed a process for redirecting such requests through Tom. Deadlines improved within a month.

Hands-on: SBI feedback builder and a feedback log

1. Draft every significant piece of feedback with this builder before you deliver it:

Situation:  When / where, specific    "In Tuesday's client call with Al Noor..."
Behaviour:  Observable, no labels      "...you shared the revised timeline before the client asked."
Impact:     On the work, team, client  "It reassured them; they approved phase two on the call."
Intent:     Reinforce or redirect?     Reinforce
Question:   Invite their view          "What made you decide to raise it early?"
Next step:  (for redirecting only)     "What would you do differently next time?"

Check the draft: could a camera have recorded the behaviour? If not, you have written a judgement ("careless", "not a team player") rather than a behaviour. Rewrite it.

2. Keep a private feedback log so feedback is balanced, timely and fair across the team:

| Date | Person | Reinforcing / Redirecting | SBI summary | Delivered? | Follow-up | |---|---|---|---|---|---|

Review it monthly. If one person has only redirecting entries, or someone has none at all, you have a fairness problem to fix.

3. Using AI to sharpen, not soften or sharpen too much. Paste an anonymised draft and ask:

Here is feedback I plan to give, in SBI format: [draft].
Flag any words that are judgements rather than observable behaviour,
anything that could read as harsher or vaguer than I intend,
and suggest one open question to invite their perspective.
Keep my meaning; do not add praise I didn't write.

Do not paste names, health details or HR case information into tools your organisation has not approved.

Common mistakes

Vague labels ("attitude", "unprofessional").
Saving feedback for formal reviews.
Only giving negative feedback.
Giving feedback when angry.
Not listening to the other person's view.

Quick self-check

Think of one behaviour you would like a colleague to continue and one you would like them to change. Write both in SBI format now, then deliver them this week.

Video lecture: Giving feedback that helps

Lecture coming soon · 13 chapters · about 9 minutes. Read the full transcript below.

Giving feedback
Why it matters
The SBI model
The sat nav
Reinforcing and redirecting
Timing and setting
Worked example 1: Nadia and Hassan (illustrative)
Worked example 2: Reem and Yusuf in Riyadh (illustrative)
Feedback across cultures
Watch me: SBI builder
Measuring success
Common mistakes
Recap and try this now

Lecture transcript

Giving feedback

Here's a sentence that makes almost everyone's stomach drop: can I give you some feedback? Why does it feel like a threat, when feedback is how we all improve? Usually because most feedback we've received has been vague, late or about us as people rather than about what we did. In this lecture you'll learn the SBI model, the difference between reinforcing and redirecting feedback, how to time and deliver it, how to adapt it across cultures, and how to give feedback upward and to peers. By the end, you'll have a draft you can deliver this week.

Why it matters

Why does this matter? Because without feedback, people are guessing. Good performers don't know what to repeat, and struggling performers don't know what to change until it's a formal problem, which is unfair to them. Feedback is also how you shape culture. What you notice and comment on tells the team what really matters, whatever the values poster says. And the cost of avoiding a small piece of feedback today is usually a much harder conversation in three months' time.

The SBI model

Here's the key idea: feedback should describe what someone did and what effect it had, not who they are. The SBI model, developed at the Center for Creative Leadership, gives you a structure. Situation: when and where, specifically. Behaviour: what the person actually did or said, observable, the kind of thing a camera could record. Impact: the effect it had on you, the team, the client or the work. Then, crucially, invite their view. Situation, behaviour, impact, and a question. That's it.

The sat nav

Here's an analogy. Think about a sat nav. It doesn't say, you're a bad driver. It says: in two hundred metres, you missed the turning, recalculating route. Situation, behaviour, impact, and a way forward. It's specific, it's neutral, and it's immediate. That's why you trust it and act on it. Now imagine a sat nav that stayed silent for three hours and then said, frankly, your driving this afternoon has been disappointing. Useless. Good feedback works like a good sat nav: timely, specific, and about the route, not the driver.

Reinforcing and redirecting

There are two kinds of feedback, and you need both. Reinforcing feedback tells someone what to keep doing. Redirecting feedback tells them what to change. Many leaders only give the second, so every one-to-one feels like a dressing down. Aim to give much more reinforcing than redirecting feedback, and make the reinforcing kind just as specific. Great work is pleasant but tells nobody anything. And a note on the old feedback sandwich, praise, criticism, praise. People learn to wait for the but, and the praise stops meaning anything. Keep them separate and honest.

Timing and setting

Timing and setting matter as much as the words. Give feedback soon, ideally within a day or two, while the details are fresh. Reinforce in public when your culture welcomes it, and redirect in private, always. Choose a moment when the person can actually listen, not two minutes before they present to a client. Check your own state too. If you're angry, wait until you can be curious. And here's the step people skip: after SBI, ask a question. What was your thinking there? You may discover context that changes everything.

Worked example 1: Nadia and Hassan (illustrative)

A simple worked example. Nadia manages a small events team in Karachi. Her colleague, Hassan, keeps sending client updates late in the evening, full of typos. Her first instinct is to say, you need to be more professional. Instead she uses SBI. In yesterday's update to the hotel client, which went out at eleven at night, there were three errors in the dates. The client called me this morning worried about the booking. Then she asks: what's going on with timing on those updates? Hassan explains he's covering two roles. Now they fix the real problem: workload.

Worked example 2: Reem and Yusuf in Riyadh (illustrative)

Now a realistic business scenario, illustrative. At an agency in Riyadh, account director Reem notices that her senior strategist, Yusuf, has pushed back on a client's brief in front of the whole client team for the second time. The client's marketing head later tells Reem she felt embarrassed. Reem books a private conversation. Situation: in Monday's workshop with the client's marketing team. Behaviour: you said their brief was fundamentally wrong, in front of her team. Impact: she told me she felt embarrassed, and she's now asking for a different strategist. Then Reem asks for his view, and they agree how he'll raise disagreement privately first.

Feedback across cultures

Culture shapes how feedback lands. In some cultures, direct negative feedback is normal and valued. In others, including many workplaces in South Asia, the Gulf and parts of East Asia, it's more often given indirectly, privately and with care for face. Neither is right. What matters is that you're understood and that the person can act. So adjust the wrapping: more context, more private, more softening words where needed, but keep the behaviour and impact specific. Feedback upward and to peers uses the same model. Ask permission first: would it help if I shared an observation about Tuesday's meeting?

Watch me: SBI builder

Watch me do it. I'm preparing reinforcing feedback for an illustrative analyst, Imran. I open the SBI builder. Situation: Thursday's quarterly review with the finance team. Behaviour: you opened with the one-line answer, then showed only three charts. Impact: the CFO approved the budget change in the meeting, which normally takes two rounds. Then a question: how did you decide what to cut? I paste the anonymised draft into an AI assistant and ask it to flag any judgement words. It flags nothing on this one. Then I log it in my feedback log, and I notice Imran hasn't had redirecting feedback in months. Is that fair to him?

Measuring success

Measuring success is simple. Does behaviour change? Do people start to ask you for feedback? Is your log balanced across the team and between reinforcing and redirecting? And the hard one: ask for feedback on your feedback. Once a quarter, ask each person, how useful is the feedback you get from me, and how could it be more useful? Notice your reaction when you receive it. If you get defensive, your team will learn that feedback flows only one way. Model receiving well, by saying thank you and asking a follow-up question.

Common mistakes

Common mistakes. Labels instead of behaviour: you're careless, you're not a team player. Waiting for the annual review. Only redirecting, never reinforcing. The feedback sandwich. Giving feedback in public that should be private. Talking at someone instead of asking their view. Softening so much that the message disappears. And a new one: sending AI-polished feedback by chat to avoid a conversation. Written feedback on something sensitive, without a conversation, almost always lands worse than you intend.

Recap and try this now

Let's recap. Feedback describes behaviour and impact, not personality. Use SBI, then ask for their view. Give far more reinforcing than redirecting feedback, and keep them separate. Give it soon, privately when redirecting, adapted to culture but still specific. Your try this now: pick one person, draft one reinforcing piece of feedback using the SBI builder in the lesson, and deliver it within forty-eight hours. Then start your feedback log. Next, we'll take on the conversations everyone avoids: the genuinely difficult ones.

Key takeaways

Effective feedback is specific, timely, balanced and about behaviour, not personality.
Use Situation–Behaviour–Impact, then ask for their view and agree next steps.
Give plenty of reinforcing feedback; never avoid necessary redirecting feedback.
Deliver redirecting feedback privately and adapt style to culture and person.

Try it

Give one piece of reinforcing and one piece of redirecting feedback this week using SBI, and note how each person responded.