Feedback only works when your team feels safe enough to hear it and accountable enough to act on it. Lia walks through three moves that make feedback land: sharing your own mistakes first, setting crystal-clear expectations before the conversation, and openly holding a high bar while signaling you believe your team can meet it. If you manage anyone and have been softening or avoiding feedback, this episode is the reset you need.
This episode is part of the Feedback & Hard Conversations series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“…it is never too late. There are best practices for giving feedback closer to when an event or an incident happens.”
“…there’s nothing that builds more trust, nothing that builds more buy-in than you as a leader owning up to the mistakes you make.”
“…folks have to be aware of the things that they’re not landing. That’s just part of working.”
Episode highlights
Why waiting feels permanent but never actually is
The most common reason feedback gets buried is not that leaders do not care. It is that time passes, the moment feels awkward, and a story forms: “I should have said this already, so now I can’t.” Lia names this directly. Best practice is to give feedback close to the incident, but the second-best time is right now. Deciding you cannot say something because you did not say it sooner is the narrative that costs you and your team the most.
What actually happens when feedback piles up
Two things go wrong when you wait. First, the person never gets the information they need to improve, so the behavior continues and compounds. Second, the rest of the team watches, wonders why nothing is being addressed, and starts asking whether they are expected to cover the gap. Lia uses a concrete example: a new hire in a quasi-leadership role who never moves from question-asker to independent operator. Weeks pass. Months pass. Other team members are now frustrated, and the new hire has no idea there is a problem.
The laundry-list trap (and why one piece of feedback at a time backfires too)
Once feedback has piled up, leaders often overcorrect in one of two directions. They either dump everything at once, which triggers defensiveness because it feels like a scorecard, or they ration it out one item per one-on-one, which makes the team member feel like nothing is ever good enough. Neither works. The fix is to address things as close to real time as possible so the pile never forms. When it has already formed, the approach in this episode is how you dig out.
Own the delay. It is not weakness; it is credibility.
The single most important move when feedback is overdue is to acknowledge it upfront. Say directly that this is something you noticed earlier and should have raised sooner. Lia is emphatic here: owning the gap is not an apology tour. It is objection handling. You are naming the elephant in the room before the team member can weaponize it, and you are signaling humility and self-awareness. Those two things buy enormous goodwill. “You know how far that’s gonna go to build trust with your team members?”
The framing that actually lowers defensiveness
After owning the delay, anchor the conversation forward. Connect the feedback to a new project, a new quarter, or a goal you are both trying to hit. Language like “as we approach these new goals, this is something we want to fine-tune” lands differently than “here is what you are doing wrong.” The feedback is still specific. The ask is still clear. But the context is growth and setup for success, not prosecution. Then close with open-ended questions: what do you think, what support do you need, here is how I will help.
What a charged reaction actually tells you
If a team member responds to a well-framed, empathetic, responsibility-owning conversation with blame or deflection, that is information. It tells you exactly where their growth edge is, and it is just as important to know as whatever behavior triggered the original feedback. Lia is clear that the goal is not to avoid all friction. The goal is to give your team members the chance to show they can handle hard conversations. The ones who can are the ones who will grow with you.
Your two-week deadline
Lia ends with a concrete challenge. Stop. Write down every conversation you have been avoiding. Feedback you have not given. Appreciation you have not expressed. Performance issues you have not named. Then commit to having at least one of those conversations within two weeks. The beginning of the year is a natural anchor. Use it. Clarity now is better than comfort later.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 226: How to give feedback without it turning into a laundry list. When you have a lot of corrective feedback to give, rattling it off item by item erodes trust and trains your team to do the bare minimum. Lia’s fix is to categorize feedback into themes, connect each theme to a clear company why, and balance corrections with specific, concrete recognition. This episode is especially useful for small business owners and team leads who feel buried in constant corrections.
- Ep 212: Why avoiding tough feedback is the most expensive mistake you can make as a leader. Avoiding difficult feedback does not protect your team member, it leaves them in the dark and lets problems quietly damage everyone around them. Lia breaks down the most common pitfalls leaders fall into with hard feedback and makes the case that one uncomfortable conversation is always cheaper than the resentment and performance damage that builds when you stay silent. This episode is especially useful for founders, owners, and team leads who know they should say something but keep finding reasons to wait.
- Ep 194: Your team member isn’t performing. Have you actually given them feedback?. Most performance problems are not about a bad hire. They are about a feedback vacuum where expectations were never clearly set. Lia walks through a simple framework: set explicit expectations, give specific constructive feedback, and only then decide whether someone can turn it around. This episode is essential for any owner or leader who has ever thought ‘they should just know this.’
- Ep 178: How to give feedback that actually works (without your team shutting down). Feedback only works when your team feels safe enough to hear it and accountable enough to act on it. Lia walks through three moves that make feedback land: sharing your own mistakes first, setting crystal-clear expectations before the conversation, and openly holding a high bar while signaling you believe your team can meet it. If you manage anyone and have been softening or avoiding feedback, this episode is the reset you need.
Want to go deeper?
The New Manager Playbook. Lia’s bestselling guide to leading a team for the first time.
Full transcript (click to expand)
Has this happened to you recently? You have to give a team member feedback, and you don’t want to give them the feedback because this thing’s been going on for a while, and you should have given the feedback before, and now you know when you have that conversation, they’re going to say, why didn’t you tell me this before? Well, the truth is, you didn’t say it before because you were busy, there was work that had to get done, you didn’t want to interrupt that, you were worried they were going to be defensive, all the things that show up when it comes to giving some difficult feedback.
But that in and of itself shouldn’t be the reason we don’t share it. So today on the show, I’m going to talk all about how to kind of quiet that chatter around getting out of giving feedback and not wanting to do it, and all the things that come up when we have to give our team members hard feedback. Now, this is not to be confused with the episode from two weeks ago, talking about confidence and communication, and really, you know, why we need to be giving difficult feedback.
I talk about feedback on the show all of the time because it is truly one of the hardest skills of being a leader of any kind, whether you’re new at it, if you’ve been doing it for decades, it’s always challenging. So feedback is something we always want to be refining our skills about. And less so about the skill of giving it today, I want to talk about the skill of getting out of your head and telling yourself you’re not good at it, or it’s too late, or whatever, whatever’s coming up.
All right? I’m Leah Garvin, and this is the new Manager Playbook podcast where I’m on a mission to make managing your team the easiest part of your job. And a big part of that, wouldn’t it be a lot easier if feedback was easier? Especially with this story that, shoot, I waited too long, I didn’t say this thing, and now I just got to let it go. The truth is, it is never too late. There are best practices for giving feedback closer to when an event or an incident happens.
So if someone is showing up late regularly, or is not getting along with employees, or is missing parts of their role, or dropping the ball, those are things that, yes, you want to be addressing close to when that thing happens. Now, for a number of reasons. You never want your team member to feel like you’re watching from the background and coming up with a laundry list of things they did wrong. Like you’re keeping score and making notes so that you can catch them on something, right?
And when we wait, and then we go through, like, and this, and this, and this, and this, that can obviously trigger defensiveness, right? It’s no surprise why. But we also don’t want to get into a situation where you give feedback and someone responds with, like, that didn’t happen, or I don’t know what you’re talking about, or give an example, and you get uncomfortable, so you get caught off guard, and you can’t really think of something, but you know it’s a habitual problem, especially like if someone’s late a lot, or they miss little things about their role, and it’s hard to pinpoint an example, but you know it’s chronic, and it’s really affecting the team.
Well, you don’t want to get in a situation where they’re like, no, I didn’t. When did that happen? And you’re like, ah, right? And you’re tongue tied. So we first, we want to address things in the moment, but the bigger thing here is what I hear more than the thing happening on the team member’s end is that you, as that manager, as that business owner, as that team leader, whatever your role is, you start to tell yourself, well, I can’t give this feedback, or it’s going to go badly, or I don’t know if I can say this, or I can just give part of the message because it’s too late, and you start creating all of these reasons that are going to both make that feedback conversation harder to have for you, and potentially muddy the message.
I think a lot of times when we’ve gathered a ton of stuff to say, or we haven’t given feedback, well, now we think, I can’t give a list of things, like I just said, right? That never works. So then we just give one, but there was four other things that were really problematic that now we have to figure out other feedback moments to be sharing. Now, let’s say we give one, and we’re waiting patiently for the next week to the next one-on-one to give the second, and we’re waiting patiently for the next one-on-one to give the next.
It can start to feel for that team member, nothing’s ever good enough, you always have a new thing wrong with my work, and you’re picking at me. So this is why we don’t want to wait for a bunch of stuff to collect, and because it can create this feeling of like, well, there’s nothing’s ever right. Now, I love to play devil’s advocate, so what if you have a team member where there are a ton of missteps?
Right now, they’re new, or they’re getting settled in, or they just changed their role, or they took something on, a new project, and yeah, you got a lot of corrective feedback to share. Again, the longer you wait, the more it’s gonna pile up. And my philosophy is always set expectations up front, talk about it, talk about what you expect to see, what success looks like, what a good job looks like, where you’re here to support them, give them space to do it, but then when you see missteps right away, especially if it’s detrimental to other team members, or your product, or your client, or your service, whatever you’re doing, it’s really important to step in early so that things don’t get worse.
So let’s take, for example, a new employee that started, and they are in a somewhat leadership position on your team, and you assume that means they’re gonna be pretty autonomous with their work, and be running with things, proposing ideas, being proactive, taking initiative, and you’re seeing, okay, at first they’re asking a lot of questions, they’re looping in team members to help out, okay, they’re learning the ropes, but then you see they never really start to operate independently.
And you’re thinking to yourself, well, gosh, it’s okay to be onboarding, but that should be over eventually, and you’re starting to get frustrated. But it’s busy, and you just don’t wanna rustle feathers, so you let things go by. Now it’s been a few weeks, now it’s been a few months, and now other team members are looking to you, and they’re thinking, well, hey, why didn’t we deal with this already? Am I supposed to do their job?
Why that person here? So now by waiting, you’ve created a challenge for that person, because they haven’t gotten the feedback, and a challenge for the rest of your team members. They’re looking at you like, what’s happening here? Now, you might think in that moment, oh gosh, I blew it, I let this go on too long, what do I say to my team members? What do I say to that other person? I don’t know what to do from here.
And that’s what this episode is about. That moment when you realize you’ve gotta give feedback, it’s probably later than you would have liked to have done it, because you do know you’re supposed to give it right away. You know best judgment is you shouldn’t wait and wait, but whatever, time’s passed. That is the day we’re gonna say something, okay? It is the beginning of the year. There are all sorts of reasons and goal setting and things that you can anchor to, so that it doesn’t feel to your team like you’ve pulled something out of thin air, and we’re waiting to tell them all the things you didn’t like about them, right?
This is not the point. And so I encourage you listening, and if you’re driving, think about it. If you’re sitting at your desk, literally grab a sheet of paper, open up a notes app, open a doc, and write down what are some of the conversations that I have not had that I need to be having? Is it feedback? Is that you haven’t really done performance reviews in a while? Is that your last cycle of performance reviews, you really didn’t say all the hard messages that you had to?
Is it that you haven’t shown appreciation for someone that’s doing a great job, and now you’re worried they’re a flight risk, right? That’s another challenge that happens when we wait too long to give feedback, is that someone may feel undervalued. So I want you to literally stop and think, what are any of the conversations that I have not been having, that I’ve now built a new narrative for myself, saying, well, too much time has passed, so I can’t have that conversation.
I can’t do that thing. Okay, think about that. And then I encourage you to, let’s say, before the end, you know, before the end of January, okay, this episode is coming out January 13th. If you’re listening later, give yourself two weeks. By the end of two weeks, have that conversation with someone. And the way we approach that conversation is we own it. We own, hey, you know what? I realize that this is something I should have said earlier.
I realize this is something that I had noticed earlier. I realize you had asked for feedback and I didn’t really have the words to say at the time. Own it. You know how far that’s gonna go to build trust with your team members? You know how far that’s gonna go to show your humility as a leader, your self-reflectiveness, that you are also here to grow and do your best, that you don’t think you’re infallible? Own it, okay?
Maybe you say, hey, this wasn’t really an issue until this project started, or this person was hired, or we took on this new project, right? Own, you know, that’s okay. You don’t have to be perfect. Someone doesn’t say, why didn’t you say this before? Like, we don’t need to go there. Own that. It also does a little bit of objection handling, right? So you are saying why you did not bring it up already. That’s a very helpful, for when you get into the defensive zone, that can happen eight, nine times out of 10 when you give feedback.
You are warding off the hard parts of the conversation. Hey, I was reflecting end of the year, beginning of the year, whatever, whatever. I realized as we face, approach these new goals that we have, these new projects, these new opportunities, this is something that we really wanna fine tune so that we can accomplish X, Y, Z. This does not, you know, just the way I’m saying it, I’m thinking pretty critically right now. I’m not feeling like that framing will create as much defensiveness as this is something you need to get better.
This is going wrong, right? This is like, you’re anchoring it into reflection, moving forward, setting up for success, right? You see the language here. It’s still feedback. It’s still giving someone specifics, right? So we’re, again, taking responsibility. We’re saying, contextualizing why not before. So, hey, as we’re starting the new year, I’ve reflected on this. I’m realizing this needs to be changing, whatever. And then you make a clear ask. So this person that was supposed to be taking on that more proactive role, and they’re leaning on a lot of team members, saying, hey, we, you know, there’s a lot going on at the end of the year.
It’s time to really consider the onboarding part done and you to be owning projects. Here is how I envision that. Now you’re setting expectations. Let me know what you think. What questions do you have? Now we’re using open-ended questions. We’re using our coaching skills. And then we say, here’s how I will support you. Close those gaps with whatever that person responds with, right? If you are saying, hey, I’m owning this. I’m realizing we need to make some shifts here.
What do you think? What support do you need? If that is the framing of this hard conversation and your team member starts laying into you with, well, you should have told me this and I didn’t know this. It’s like, they’re missing the conversation because you did not accuse them of anything. You did not say, you know, it’s my way or the highway. You did not say it’s this or else. You’re not saying anything that should trigger that.
So now you’re actually getting so much freaking information about that team member and how they’re handling hard conversations. Information that you need to know. Because if people are not able to be open to feedback, if people are not able to learn from the mistakes and have these hard conversations, that is an area to develop along with this thing that’s not working, right? That is just as big of a problem as whatever misstep has triggered the need for feedback.
How meta is that, right? So we avoid these things often because we think, gosh, I’m kind of wrong too. I didn’t give the feedback. I wasn’t saying the things that needed to be said. And I appreciate you owning up to that. And you know what? Your team member will appreciate that too. That’s why we wanna say that. And then the people who will stick with you thick and thin, the people that, especially my business owner listeners that are gonna take you from what got you here to what get you there, right?
These people that you are growing and cultivating as you are growing and cultivating your business, expanding, scaling, thinking about new offerings. Those are the people. They’ve gotta be ready to listen to some feedback. That’s who you need with you. And if you’re in corporate and you have some less control of those levers, these are skills that you are going to have to support your team in building and delivering on. Everybody has to get better at feedback.
It is something that is, we’re getting worse as a population at feedback. I’m seeing it. And it’s not just folks that are younger, although that has been a big challenge, right? As folks entering the workforce, they’re less used to having feedback. They may be less used to that confrontation. But I think as a whole, we are hypersensitive to feedback right now. And so when you don’t wanna have a hard conversation as that leader, you can think, I don’t even wanna deal with this.
So again, I appreciate you taking responsibility that yeah, you should have had the conversation before potentially. Now we have a lot of content on the show about how to have that conversation. And again, I already said spoiler, you wanna have it as close to the incident as possible. And another spoiler, you wanna have that conversation one-on-one. So not sort of like doing that in front of the group unless there was some sort of issue with the group, right?
But the truth is you deciding because you didn’t give it before, now you can never give it and you shouldn’t give it and you can’t, we have to save it up and then it causes something later. All of that narrative, this is you growing and building your skills in feedback. It’s not too late, we can have the conversation now, we can take responsibility, we can own it. And again, there’s nothing that builds more trust, nothing that builds more buy-in than you as a leader owning up to the mistakes you make.
There’s nothing that makes your team then own up to their own mistakes better. And again, like I said, if your team members act like middle school girls saying like, well, you said this and I’m not gonna do it, it’s like forget it. That person, that’s a whole different issue and it’s lucky that you found that out. And we’re not talking about managing out today but I think I want you to give your team members an opportunity to show that they can handle feedback.
I want you to know which of your team members are the ones that are most resilient and ones that need more support in wrestling with their propensity to be defensive. I’ve got a six-year-old right now and she’s learning how to read and when she gets her Bs and Ds and Ss all backwards and I’m like, oh, like, you know, it’s just this one’s backwards. She starts flipping out like, no it isn’t, it doesn’t matter. And I’m like, yikes, like we gotta help this kid get better at being okay with their mistakes because she’s never gonna read if I never say anything and she’s got all these backwards letters and nobody corrects her her whole life because she’s flipping out on them, right?
So like that’s my responsibility as her mom. Well, it’s your responsibility as their manager to give someone feedback and then it’s that person’s responsibility to act on it. So it’s like you lead the horse to water and then they drink. So it’s not too late to give feedback. Here is to having that conversation, here is to that list you just made, I’m holding you to it and writing down who you need to give feedback to and having that conversation by the end of the month and seeing how it goes.
If the conversation is very, very charged and the conversation and you feel like, well, gosh, like will this make someone wanna quit and leave? Like it’s things to think through. Those are not reasons to not have the conversation but then there’s about putting some safeguards in place, right? Having backup plans and figuring out how you wanna message this thing that could create such a strong reaction that that’s what you’re worrying about. But I will say this, a lot of times we worry that we say something and someone’s gonna flip out or someone’s gonna quit and it’s not the response that happens.
And a lot of times when we get it right, when we bring the empathy and the specificity and all the tools that we know about giving feedback and we bring compassion first and foremost and take responsibility, the reaction isn’t, well, then F you, I’m outta here. It’s just not the case. And like I said, if that is how close your team member is, even when you’ve used all your skills, all your tools, then that person could leave you in a really tough spot down the line when you really need them.
And I don’t know if that’s worth it, all right? I know that’s a pretty hot take I got there but we just, we’ve gotta give feedback. Folks have to be aware of the things that they’re not landing. That’s just part of working, all right? And if you need support with this, you know who to call. Hello at leighgarver.com, here to support, here to help you craft that feedback message, here to help you deliver that, do a feedback workshop with your team, get more familiar with giving and receiving feedback.
Hey, you need a feedback tool, I got it for you. See you next time.
Questions this episode answers
Is it too late to give feedback if I waited too long to say something?
It is never too late to give feedback. Yes, best practice is to address things close to when they happen, but waiting does not mean the conversation is off the table. The longer you stay silent, the more the problem compounds, and the more your team wonders why nothing is being addressed. The right day to have that conversation is today. Own that you should have said something sooner, anchor the feedback to a forward-looking goal or new project, and have the conversation now rather than letting it pile up further.
What do I say when giving feedback I should have shared months ago?
Start by owning the delay. Say something like, I realize I should have brought this up earlier, or I noticed this a while back and did not have the words at the time. That honesty builds trust and does some of the objection handling for you before defensiveness even starts. Then anchor the feedback to something forward-looking, like a new goal or project, and make a clear ask. Close with open-ended questions about what the person needs from you to move forward. That framing keeps the tone collaborative rather than accusatory.
How do I avoid making a team member feel attacked when I have a backlog of feedback to give?
Do not deliver a laundry list. Going through item after item signals that you have been keeping score, which almost always triggers defensiveness. If you have let multiple issues pile up, prioritize the one that is most affecting the team or the work, address it first, and create separate moments to address the others over time. Spreading it out prevents the team member from feeling like nothing they do is ever right. The goal is a conversation that opens a door, not one that shuts someone down.
What if my employee responds defensively when I finally give delayed feedback?
If you have already owned the delay, anchored the message to a shared goal, and asked open-ended questions about what support they need, a defensive response actually tells you something important about that person. They are showing you how they handle hard conversations. Someone who lashes back even after you have approached with humility and compassion is giving you real information about their ability to grow and receive feedback. That is data you need, separate from the original issue you were addressing.
How do I stop talking myself out of giving hard feedback?
Recognize that the story you are telling yourself, that it is too late, that it will go badly, that you can only share part of the message now, is what makes the conversation harder and muddies what you actually need to say. Start by writing down every conversation you have been avoiding and give yourself a two-week deadline to have at least one of them. Owning your part in the delay is not a weakness. It is one of the fastest ways to build trust with your team and model the kind of accountability you want them to bring to their own work.