Many leaders I work with are finding themselves and their teams burnt out. There are numerous reasons for this. Many of us have been working from home and managing households—while managing work teams—for a long time now. Working from home, we’re prone to miss out on the nuances of face-to-face communication an office setting provides. You may be experiencing Slack or email burnout and feeling disconnected from your teams.

Ask yourself: as a leader striving for perfection, are you too critical? Do you give feedback others perceive as harsh? You can't skimp on delivering challenging feedback. But with a focus on productivity in our work-from-home setting, only delivering critical feedback has become the norm for some organizations. Remember that positive feedback plays a part in the learning process, too.  Here are four things to think about the next time you need to deliver feedback.

Diagnosis your teams’ feedback needs

Evaluate the needs of your team. There are some folks on your team who need more positive feedback than others. Which of your team members value being publicly recognized? Share positive feedback for a job well done to motivate your teams; for individuals who value public recognition, do it in front of others. 

To become aware of your teams’ needs, begin by looking at reviews and 360s. Look for trends and what people are asking for in terms of receiving feedback. Is anyone asking for more positive feedback or feedback in general? Another method is to spend more time with your team members in your one-to-one meetings to discern who needs to hear what feedback. Lastly, watch for signs of frustration—for example, not caring as much about the work product, overall malaise, stress, or other out-of-character behaviors. Consider asking what you need to do to help your team member feel motivated. 

Give specific positive feedback

Well-intentioned positive feedback can fall flat in the delivery. Yes, you are extremely busy—but take time to be thoughtful about how you communicate positive feedback. If you spend time thinking about how you will deliver difficult feedback, spend the same amount of time thinking of how you will deliver positive feedback. Rather than simply saying "good job,” be specific—for example, "Great job in the meeting today.  Your delivery of the data showed that you spent a lot of time in preparation. You handled the difficult questions from Jon extremely well, especially on the question of budgeting for 2021."  

Schedule time to give positive feedback

Many clients share that, frankly, they don't have time to deliver positive feedback—or they forget. Delivering positive feedback may seem unnecessary in the face of critical tasks, but it is a crucial part of keeping teams motivated. Create a habit of delivering positive feedback. For instance, you could put a note in your calendar to provide positive feedback every two weeks. Another easy implementation strategy is to deliver positive, actionable feedback in the last five minutes of your one-on-one meetings. 

One former client was astounded when, after looking at what he was communicating, he realized that he never shared positive feedback. To rectify this, the client wanted to make sharing positive feedback a habit. He scheduled in his calendar to share positive feedback once a month, with the goal to increase this frequency over time. Once a month was a start; my client could immediately see the benefits of sharing positive feedback with his teams.

Share the right amount of positive feedback

Be careful about sharing too much positive feedback; you don’t want to seem inauthentic. Be a cheerleader for your team, share wins, and convey positive feedback; yet make sure it is appropriate and measured. Use your gut. Ask yourself: “Does this team member glaze over when I deliver positive feedback?” “Does it feel like I’m giving ‘high fives’ all the time, when the work does not measure up?” “Does this team member dismiss the feedback?” Watch for the signals that you may be sharing too much. Find the right balance of positive and constructive for each person.

An easy way to help your teams stay motivated is to assess whether you are delivering positive feedback, and to what effect. If you realize you haven’t been doing this effectively, you’re not alone. But this is a fixable problem. A small amount of time spent giving specific positive feedback can do a lot to motivate your teams and encourage them to push forward in difficult times.