Feedback plays a vital role for every leader. First, you should be able to give constructive feedback to foster the learning process and motivation of your coworker so they can overcome challenges and understand connections.
All people have so-called blind spots, something they don’t see. This blind spot can be accessed by receiving qualitative and constructive feedback. The following model illustrates the blind spot all humans have concerning their self-image. It is a model of human understanding and consists of four departments.
Johari Window (Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham, 1955)
How can you give good feedback that reduces the blind spot? People usually don’t like to be perceived as stupid, especially not in front of their peers or leaders. Thus we can only reduce the blind spot if we acknowledge participants’ knowledge and skills. Also, take a look into the future together.
This task is very important to the company and you are doing a great job. I believe the results can even be improved with a few adjustments.
Still, the best feedback is in a 1:1 conversation. This short and simple acknowledgement of your coworker's work is a boost of self-confidence and reassures the relationship between you two: "We are in this together".
The most important driver of good feedback is not making it personal. This would be the reason why feedback won't be accepted and the reason why feedback must be specific. Describe behavior, results, documents, circumstances, impressions, etc. in way that is people-neutral.
Even better, good feedback can give coworkers something they can build upon like a piece of advice or some ideas to proceed. This kind of feedback is called constructive. In order to give specific and constructive feedback to your participants I recommend the following SBIO steps.
Giving specific and constructive feedback aims at helping coworkers to learn something, either from you or from peers. The SBIO model offers a useful way on how you can structure that feedback. A SBIO feedback includes 3 to 4 parts: