You Don’t Need to be Terrible When You Have to Provide Negative Feedback
It’s always a tough call to say something negative towards the people you work with. You don’t want to hurt their feelings. You also want them to feel comfortable working with you. Once you say something negative, it could strain your relationship. Worse, some of them might decide to leave the company.
As a leader, you’re responsible in telling the people you work with if they’re not performing well. You can’t allow them to continue doing a bad job as it could adversely affect the company. The good thing is that you can say negative feedback without turning into a monster.
Cultivate an atmosphere of open-mindedness
It’s crucial that you create an environment at work where people are accepting of each other. It includes all sorts of feedback. You need to instill the idea that it’s part of the process and you’re only doing it to help everyone improve professionally. It’s not your intention to personally hurt anyone in the team. Consequently, you also have to show that you’re open to suggestions. If this is the kind of atmosphere that you have at work, it would be easy for you to say negative feedback without offending anyone.
Talk to employees in private
No one wants to be humiliated front of others. Therefore, it’s crucial that you don’t scold an employee when everyone else is listening. It could have devastating effects. Some people aren’t tough enough to handle the embarrassment and might even harm themselves. You don’t want to be responsible for those decisions. Therefore, if you can try talking to people in private, it would help. You can say whatever you want and even have an honest discussion because no one is listening.
Choose the right words
You can provide negative feedback without necessarily using curse words or expressing your frustration. The goal is to let the employee know that the job wasn’t handled well and you want to point out what else could be done the next time. You can express all these sentiments in a calm manner. Try to be like a parent who only wants the best for the child. Besides, cursing and throwing tantrums won’t help further your cause.
Offer help
You can’t keep scolding people at work without telling them how they can be better. When you offer criticisms, make sure they’re constructive in nature. For instance, if a project failed, you need to point out what went wrong. If you handled the project, explain what you would have done to make it successful. You can also offer help for future projects. Tell the employee that if there are doubts or questions, you’re always available to extend help.
Make sure that the relationship at work won’t be affected because of a negative comments. You don’t have to sugarcoat and pretend that everything is okay. Try your best to practice how to say the right words to avoid hurting your employees.
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2nd image from https://insightsresources.seek.com.au/firing-employee-still-probation-period-need-know
