As performance review season hits, both managers and employees face a shared opportunity: to bring more clarity, alignment, and intention into the workplace. Feedback, when delivered and received constructively, isn’t just evaluative. It’s directional.
Feedback Is a Gift
In theory, year-end performance reviews are designed to align expectations, identify strengths, reinforce employee value, and chart a path for future growth. In practice, these formal reviews can often feel vague, uncomfortable, or disconnected from day-to-day work. But when grounded in the right intent and executed with precision, feedback becomes one of the most valuable tools for organizational and individual development. Providing thoughtful and personalized feedback requires preparation and time.
The Manager’s Role
If you manage people, your job is to help them identify valued strengths, areas for development and ways to succeed within the context of their role. That means feedback should focus on observable behaviors and the impact of those behaviors on outcomes, not assumptions about intent or personality traits.
A well-prepared manager comes to a review with clear expectations for the role, specific examples of employe performance that meet and may not meet expectations, and ideally, a benchmark drawn from others in similar roles. The purpose is not to compare but to provide context. The most effective feedback includes two parts:
- What’s working – Highlight the employee’s strengths and how those strengths contribute to team or organizational goals. Help them see where they are excelling and how to leverage those assets more strategically.
- What needs to improve – Offer specific, actionable areas for development. This isn’t about pointing out flaws. It’s about showing someone the path to meeting or exceeding expectations.
Most importantly, if this is the first time the employee is hearing this feedback, this needs to change. Feedback should be a continuous thread, not an annual event.
Intent Matters: Set the Tone for Growth
When delivering tough feedback, your intent must be clear. You’re not there to criticize or demean. You’re there to help and serve as a coach. Constructive feedback, when delivered with care and clarity, is an investment in that person’s growth. If your employees don’t understand that your goal is to help them improve, the feedback loses its power and becomes something to endure or possibly resent instead of something to act on.
For Employees: Use Feedback as a Diagnostic Tool
Not every manager will get it right. Some may lack the skill, time, or courage to deliver thoughtful candid feedback. Delivering feedback in a positive and encouraging manner is a developed skill for managers and some deliver it better than others. Feedback, even when imperfect, is invaluable and provides a diagnostic signal. It reveals how your actions as a member of the team are being perceived and valued, and how they align (or don’t) with expectations.
Even if the delivery is off, don’t discard the content. Use it as a springboard to ask better questions:
- What would it look like if I were meeting or exceeding expectations?
- What specific behaviors or outcomes should I focus on?
- How will we measure progress?
Performance reviews can also serve as a moment to reset or clarify expectations: what success looks like, how it’s measured, and what behaviors are expected along the way. These conversations can prevent misalignment from festering and help create a shared blueprint for moving forward. These conversations should also include discussions around career development plans and advancement goals.
Final Thought: Feedback Is Direction, Not Judgment
Whether you’re giving or receiving it, feedback isn’t about verdicts. It’s about direction and coaching. At its best, it’s a mirror reflecting both your strengths and alignment with the organization, and the adjustments needed to reach your full potential. At its worst, it’s still a clue, a data point that can spark a deeper conversation or a smarter strategy.
So as the review season unfolds, remember constructive and thoughtful feedback isn’t just a task to check off. It’s a valuable tool. And if you use it well by incorporating, adapting, and growing, then consider it as a “gift that keeps on giving”.