My core belief is that feedback should be fearless. I hope it becomes your core practice.

Belief. It’s what inspires us to take risks, tackle adversity, and chase growth.

My core belief is that feedback should be fearless. It guides my work on stage, in print and on air.

I hope that my beliefs can become your behaviors.

1. Show, don’t tell

Great feedback isn’t about imposing our will on others. It’s about giving others the will to improve. Instead of telling others what’s wrong, guide them towards what’s right. The best leaders I’ve worked with don’t force a change. They provoke an insight. They treat feedback as an opportunity to expand the view of others, not enlarge their own.

2. Signal forward, not backward

Feedforward is the process of pointing others towards a future they can still change instead of a past they can’t. The future is a place of possibility and potential. That’s exactly where leaders should be guiding these conversations about work. When people can imagine a better future, they do better work.

3. Seek partnership, not power

Feedback is more than just a set of ratings and reports. It’s a relationship. And the best relationships are defined by what we do for others, not to others. When feedback becomes an exchange between partners, there’s no limit on progress.

4. Strive for candor, not comfort

Too often, we choose our comfort over our calling. If we’re privileged to lead others, our our job isn’t to make them feel good. It’s to help them do better. Good feedback should make people uncomfortable with the status quo while still providing them with a measure of comfort: We care enough about them to share this information with them.

5. Spark joy, not fear

Fear fails in the modern workplace. It makes people feel depleted and defeated, not renewed and restored. When feedback activates our human desire for agency and achievement, it unlocks our deepest and most profound emotion: Joy.