By Ralph Pillot III
Managers: Delivering feedback so aggressively that the employee remembers the humiliation more clearly than the standard is damaging.
I expect our managers to address behavior that falls below our standards. I also expect them to manage themselves while doing it.
An employee should leave a feedback conversation understanding what needs to change and how to improve. Their dignity should remain intact.
That requires more than choosing the right words. Timing, privacy, tone and your willingness to listen all matter.
Consider what happens when a manager corrects an advisor in front of a client. The employee now has to manage the embarrassment while trying to maintain the client’s confidence. The client has been pulled into an internal performance conversation. Other employees are watching and learning what might happen when they make a mistake.
You have added another problem to the one you intended to solve.
If the client needs immediate assistance, step in calmly and take care of the situation. Once the client is away, arrange coverage and speak with the employee privately, where colleagues cannot overhear.
A quiet voice in the middle of the sales floor does not make a conversation private.
And if you are frustrated, take a moment to compose yourself. The employee needs your judgment. Your frustration should not determine how the conversation goes.
The purpose is to improve the next client interaction.
Suppose an advisor ends an appointment without confirming the promised follow-up. Start with what you observed and connect it to the standard:
“The client left without knowing when we would contact them. Our standard is that every client leaves with a clear next step and an agreed follow-up time. Walk me through what happened.”
That is direct. It identifies the behavior, explains the expectation and gives the employee room to provide context.
Compare that with, “You are careless,” or, “How many times do I have to tell you?”
Neither statement teaches the employee what to do differently. Both can turn a discussion about performance into a defense of personal character.
Keep the conversation focused on the behavior and the standard.
Then listen to the answer.
Perhaps the advisor misunderstood who owned the follow-up. Perhaps the system was unavailable. Perhaps they knew the expectation and simply missed it. Those situations require different responses.
If you contributed to the confusion, acknowledge it. If the process is broken, take responsibility for fixing it. If the employee needs practice, provide it. Listening carefully helps you choose a correction that addresses the actual problem.
You can then make the next action clear:
“Please contact the client today and agree on the follow-up. Record that commitment so the team can support it. Before your next appointment, let’s practice how you will close the conversation.”
Now the employee has something useful to work with.
There is a client commitment to repair, a behavior to practice and an expectation for the next interaction. The manager has also committed to helping.
This is what I want our leaders to understand: telling someone to improve is only part of the responsibility. You need to make sure they understand what good performance looks like and have the preparation to deliver it.
“Be more professional” leaves too much open to interpretation. Describe the greeting, the handoff, the follow-up or the preparation that was missing. Explain how that detail affects the client.
Also distinguish a shared standard from your personal preference. An employee may use different words or have a different style and still deliver an excellent experience. Give people room to develop their own judgment within clear expectations.
As I have written in Middle Management Is Where Strategy Becomes Reality, managers make the company’s expectations visible in daily work. A private coaching conversation is one of the places where that happens.
The responsibility continues after the conversation.
Observe the next opportunity. When the employee applies the feedback, acknowledge the specific improvement. Let them know you noticed the clearer handoff or the completed follow-up. Employees should hear from you when they get it right, too.
If the behavior continues, address it with clear evidence, follow-up and appropriate accountability. A repeated issue may require a more formal response. Respect still applies.
Strong sales results do not excuse behavior that weakens the client experience or the team. Equally, a difficult performance issue does not give a manager permission to embarrass someone.
Privacy should continue afterward as well. Do not turn an employee’s correction into a story for colleagues. If the whole team needs a reminder, teach the standard without making one person the example.
This is also why I believe employee development needs deliberate attention. Coaching should be a regular part of working with a manager, with opportunities to practice and improve before problems become patterns.
I want our managers to hold high standards and make people more capable of meeting them.
Be clear about what happened. Give the employee a fair hearing. Agree on what needs to change and follow through on your part.
The standard matters. So does the dignity of the person you are teaching to meet it.
What has helped you make a difficult feedback conversation useful for the person receiving it?
