The feedback you give should always be about the behavior of your direct report. If you cannot link your feedback to a behavior, don’t give it.
On Behavior Only
Feedback is only given on behavior because feedback is about influencing future behavior. You don’t give feedback on anything else. A television station manager does not give the weatherman feedback about the weather; he has no control over it. She gives him feedback on how well he delivered the weather report or how useful the report was. She wants him giving more useful weather reports better. Likewise, when you want to give feedback, boil the issue down to the underlying behavior.
If you try to give feedback to your direct report because she has been a jerk, don’t tell her, “Stop being a jerk. It tears down the team and makes you less effective.” She will come right back with, “I wasn’t a jerk; I was just being truthful. Do you want me to start lieing?” You are now in a dispute with your direct report and any useful direction you attempt to provide will not take hold. Instead, ask yourself why do you think she was a jerk.
Was it because she kept cutting off a coworker in mid-sentence? “Susan, when you keep cutting off Bob in mid-sentence, it comes across as rude and damages your relationship with Bob and others on the team. Can you change that for me?”
Was she a jerk because she kept rolling her eyes at Bob’s ideas? “Susan, when you roll your eyes as Bob presents his thoughts, it conveys a lack of respect for others around you. Can refrain from doing it in the future?”
See how each of the two examples linked to a behavior (cutting Bob off and rolling her eyes) were more effective at conveying to Susan what she needed to change? When you characterize a direct reports behavior, you open up the characterization for debate. Your direct report is not productive when she does this, nor are you effective at getting the result you want.
Types of Behavior
There are three types of work behavior: results, what you do, and what you say. These are the only things you can give feedback on. Reduce all other things to one of these three types of behaviors.
What is Done
The actions someone takes is the most obvious type of behavior they can engage in. Our earlier examples were specific actions that Susan took. Additionally, failing to take an action counts as behavior as well. If you decided not to pay your taxes, the government would still see fit to take action against you. Not completing a task on time is failing to engage in the behavior that would see it completed on time.
What Is Said
Our current culture has a mixed approach to words. We are either to be protected from what others say, or anyone should be able to say anything with impunity. Neither are true in a work context. Calling a coworker names tears down the team and leads to a less effective organization. It is not to be tolerated. Freedom of speech means only that the government can take no action against you for it. The organization can certainly fire you for it. Google took this route with James Damore for his memo on diversity at the company. The prudence of doing so aside, Google was within its rights to do so. They fired him for work related behavior they did not want in the workplace.
Results
Everyone is paid for the results they produce. Your direct reports expect you to give feedback on the quality and the quantity of your direct reports results. Results can be little trickier than the other behaviors because they are the consequence of different behaviors. The number of bugs in a programmer’s code is the result in part of time spent on documentation and quality control among other things. The amount of sales a salesman makes is a product of outreach to current customers, cold calls to potential customers, and other things. Continued poor results will require additional coaching and specific feedback on contributing behaviors. Even though harder to trace than the words a direct report uses, results are still indisputable. Either the direct report met the standard (e.g., number of sales) or he did not.
Conclusion
Only give feedback on your direct reports’ behavior. By linking feedback to a behavior, you put yourself on an indisputable footing. The direct report cannot argue with your characterization, because you haven’t made one. Your direct report knows what they need to change or to keep doing.