How to Give Feedback With Emotional Intelligence: A 4-Step Framework

Want to give corrective feedback others see as helpful, not harmful? Try this simple 4-step framework.

If you’re a business owner, manager, or team lead, you’re going to have to give negative feedback to your people. This isn’t a bad thing: Everyone has blind spots. Your job is to help them identify those blind spots, improve, and grow.

Then why is giving negative feedback so stinking hard?

One huge reason: You were likely never trained how to give effective feedback. What’s more, if you were, the person who trained you probably used one of these methods:

• The (rotten) sandwich method (praise, negative feedback, praise)
• Super direct and without care for how the feedback is received
• Too subtle or wordy, so the point of the feedback is lost

The problem is, these methods don’t work. But there’s a much better way: A way to transform your feedback from harmful, helpful. From critical, to constructive.

It’s called emotionally intelligent feedback—and it’ll completely transform the way people see you and the opinions you share.

What is emotionally intelligent feedback?

Before we define emotionally intelligent feedback, let’s break down both these terms:

• Emotional intelligence
• Feedback

What is emotional intelligence? Simply put, it’s your ability to understand and manage emotions. I like to refer to it as making emotions work for you, instead of against you.

What exactly is feedback? It’s a term we use often without really thinking about. Basically, feedback is data—information about a person’s performance on a task or on their job as a whole, typically with the goal of helping that person improve.

When you look at the definition of feedback, that sounds like something everyone wants, right?

Wrong.

Generally speaking, most people don’t like to be told how to improve. And this goes back to the poor delivery methods used to deliver feedback—in most cases, it makes people feel as if they’re being attacked, setting off their fight-flight-or-freeze response. Or it is delivered so weakly that people completely miss the point.

Here is where emotionally intelligent feedback comes in: Emotionally intelligent feedback is delivering information that can help a person improve in a way they interpret as helpful.

From the outset, emotionally intelligent feedback focuses on how the person feels about your feedback. This is a game changer, because you cannot make anyone else change or improve; only they have the power to do that. And the only way your feedback will help is if they decide to implement it.

How do you give emotionally intelligent feedback? Here’s a four-step framework.

1. Praise regularly.

As the old saying goes, they won’t care about you until they know how much you care about them.

When you give your people consistent, sincere, and specific praise, they see you as someone who appreciates them. This isn’t empty flattery, ticking a box, or the sandwich method.

Rather, this is getting in the habit of pointing out the good others are doing, in the moment, without any other type of feedback. Adopt the maxim: “See something good, say something good.”

If you do this regularly, your people will be more willing to listen when you point out areas for improvement.

2. Give the other person a chance to speak.

When the time comes to help a person identify a blind spot or improve on a weakness, remember: You want to help them get the point without them feeling attacked.

Start by getting their perspective. Ask questions like:

• How do you feel about [your role, this situation, how things are going]?
• What are your challenges? What’s hard for you?
• Anything you would do differently?

Questions like these help you to understand the other person, their headspace, how they feel about how things are going. Sometimes, they already know they need to work on something. They may be craving help, or, they may be defensive about it. In other cases, they may be completely oblivious.

Asking these questions gives you valuable data you can use to tailor the rest of your feedback.

3. Acknowledge, empathize, ask for permission.

Before giving any tips for improvement, share a struggle you’ve had in the past, and how someone else’s feedback helped you improve. Doing this builds empathy and connection, and helps the other person to lower their guard.

Once you’ve done this, you can ask for permission to share something that may help them, too. You could say something like:

• Can I share something that’s really helped me in the past?
• Can I tell you what really changed my perspective on this?

I know what you’re thinking: Why in the world should I ask for permission? I’m the boss! Won’t this weaken how the employee sees me?

Actually, rather than weaken your position in the eyes of the employee, it will strengthen it. Remember that respect begets respect.

Also, asking for permission gives the other person a measure of control and safety, allowing the recipient to prime themselves for what’s coming next. This changes the lens through which they view your feedback from harmful to helpful—and helps them to see you as someone who has their best interests at heart.

4. Thank the other person for listening.

A simple “thanks for letting me share this” or “hope you find this helpful” goes a long way. In most cases, the person will thank you back.

Learning to give emotionally intelligent feedback completely changes how others see you. You’re not the clueless boss or colleague. You’re the one who’s got their back. The one who wants to make them better.

That’s the power of emotionally intelligent feedback—it transforms what you say from harmful to helpful. And there’s nothing more emotionally intelligent than that.