as a leader a big part of your job is giving feedback to your team about their performance at work sometimes that feedback is positive but other times that feedback is negative if you've never given negative feedback to anyone before or if you've never been trained in giving negative feedback it can be really daunting you might be worried that you will offend someone you might be worried the other person will hate you you might be worried that it will damage your professional reputation all of these fears are completely normal but they shouldn't stop you from giving negative feedback when you need to this is part of your job as a leader it's something you need to do or need to learn how to do and in this video you are going to learn an easy three-step structure so you can give negative feedback with confidence before we get started i have to state the obvious these types of conversations negative feedback conversations should always be done in a private setting never in front of other co-workers or other people in the office so choose a private room you and the other person can go to you also need to remain calm during the conversation getting angry getting aggressive is not going to help you or the other person when you give them negative feedback so stay calm as well as doing it in a private room you may already be aware of these things or you may feel they're pretty common sense but in case you're not i felt i needed to mention them the first thing you need to remember when giving negative feedback is you should never sugarcoat things now what do i mean by sugar coating things well basically when you wrap negative feedback in some kind of positive feedback so you might sandwich the negative feedback in the middle between two pieces of positive feedback you have for that person this might be tempting for you probably because you don't like giving negative feedback you don't want to sound harsh you don't want to offend the other person so you might be tempted to wrap that negative feedback in positive feedback but there are two risks associated with this now the first one is the other person is likely to walk away very confused they don't know if they have done a good job or a bad job because you've given them both positive and negative feedback and the second risk is the negative feedback it doesn't stand out so you've given that person two pieces of positive feedback and one piece of negative feedback so when they walk away from the situation in their mind you've given them majority positive feedback and only a little bit of negative feedback so overall they could walk away thinking they've done a good job sugar coating negative feedback will give your employee a false sense of how they're performing which makes your job much harder in the long run because it means you have to come back and address those very same issues again having one negative feedback conversation with someone is hard enough you certainly don't want to have to do it two times or three times simply because you aren't doing it the right way the very first time in order to be clear and direct with your negative feedback you need to tell the other person these three things what is the issue what is the problem what are they doing wrong why is it a problem what are the consequences what are the implications of their actions why is it important for them to fix what are the repercussions on the team or on the company if they don't fix these issues this could sound something like terry i noticed you've been sending out emails to our clients with spelling and punctuation errors i need you to be very careful of these mistakes in your emails and make sure that you proofread every email before you send them the reason this is a problem is because we're a copywriting agency and our clients expect us to have perfect spelling and punctuation it's really important you meet those standards too because these kinds of mistakes could cost us an important client or thousands of dollars in the future yes this example i just shared with you is assertive but you know at the end of the day you are a leader you need to be assertive you need to be confident and there will be times during your job as a leader when you need to deliver a strong message an assertive message to people and this often happens when you need to give people negative feedback if you like what you've learned so far in this video then hit the subscribe button below that really helps my channel to grow and it helps you also because you get videos every week in your feed on leadership to help you advance in your leadership journey the next step in this sequence is to discuss how that person can improve you've just given them a piece of negative feedback you can't leave them sitting there with that you need to help them discover how they can improve how they can improve on that particular issue you've addressed this is your job as a leader and it's your responsibility as well you need to support people and you need to guide them toward the growth in their career so during that negative feedback conversation ask the other person how do you think you can improve in this area do you need any resources to help you do you need any training to help you maybe terry is having problems with their spelling and punctuation in emails because they're so swamped with work and they just don't have the time to proofread their emails or maybe they've never had any training when it comes to proper spelling and punctuation maybe you could offer some training in this area to help them improve your job as a leader is to find out why this problem is happening and how you can overcome it this needs to be a conversation between you and your employee you need to show them that you are supporting them through their career growth you need to offer them solutions or ideas on how they can improve it needs to be a conversation between you and your employees so they know that they're not alone in this that you are supporting them in this and creating a follow-up plan will help you show that you are invested in their growth that they are not alone on this journey you need to discuss what are the steps that employee needs to take to overcome this problem write those steps down get that employee to buy in to that idea get that employee to a buy-in and to agree with what the next steps should be write them down so they're clear and obvious to both you and your employee and provide a timeline as well a timeline as to when certain steps will be completed once you've left the negative feedback conversation with your employee you need to evaluate them closely especially for the first couple of weeks monitor their progress see how they're going ask them how they're going and offer additional solutions if they're still having difficulty give them more guidance during the first couple of weeks then when you see that they're starting to improve and you have confidence in their level of improvement you can let go a little bit and give them some more independence and what's really important here is that you acknowledge when they have improved employees need to know this they need to know when they've done a good job as well as when you need to give them negative feedback so if you see an employee who has done something really well they have improved on an aspect that you discussed during the negative feedback meeting make sure you let them know about it this will definitely help them like you more as a leader and help you develop your reputation as a supportive leader who gives every employee and team member the guidance that they need if at this point of the video after the three-step structure you are still worried about people at work your employees at work not liking you then you need to watch this video right here where i share practical strategies to help people at work like you more