Lois knew by March. Her direct report, Derek, was missing deadlines consistently enough that she was quietly routing work around him. She told herself she was being patient, that he was still getting up to speed, and that she'd bring it up after the next project wrapped. That never happened.
Lois has been a manager for five years, and nobody ever warned her about how hard it can be to tell her people the truth. She wants to be the good boss — the one people say good things about. Which means she absorbs the friction and adjusts around him. She gives vague encouragement in their one-on-ones, but ultimately she takes on more work to fix his errors, saving the real assessment for conversations with her own manager. Silence becomes the default, and by December, she's doing his job and hers. Derek has no idea.
In ten years of coaching leaders, I've never met someone who withheld feedback because they didn't care. It's almost always the opposite.
The pattern
Everyone knows what it feels like to sit across from someone with something hard to say. Those memories are partly why so many of us avoid tough conversations. Sheila Heen, a negotiation expert and professor at Harvard Law School, told Big Think that receiving feedback puts two core human needs in direct conflict.
"Human beings are wired to learn and grow," and feedback helps us do that, she said, adding that research consistently shows we tend to be happier and more satisfied when we can see ourselves getting better at something. "But alongside that lies this second core human need, which is the need to be accepted and respected and loved just the way we are now. And the very fact of the feedback suggests that how we are now is not quite a-okay."
That explains why smart, caring leaders choose silence. I recognize this in leaders I work with who genuinely love their people. That's what makes it hard. But to organizational psychologist Adam Grant, withholding feedback amounts to choosing your own comfort over someone else's growth.
The reframe
Grant added, "If you're worried about hurting their feelings, it's a sign that you haven't earned their trust. In healthy relationships, honesty is an expression of care." Timing is part of that honesty.
"A lot of leaders wait until performance reviews, and that's when they deliver the unvarnished truth," Grant said. "That comes as a surprise to their direct reports, who for the last six months thought everything was fine. If you deliver a message during a performance review that comes as a surprise to anybody on your team, you have failed to give the feedback in real time so that they can learn from it, adapt, and make an effort at improving."
If left unchecked, withholding feedback produces a team that learns — slowly and without anyone deciding it — that certain things don't get said out loud.
From our good intentions and desire for comfort, people end up being managed around, evaluated privately, and denied the one thing that could actually help them and their long-term growth. That might feel protective, but it isn't.
The practice
Another reason leaders stay silent is that they don't trust themselves to give feedback well. They fear damaging the relationship, saying the wrong thing, making it worse. In my work, I've found the best way to address those concerns (or excuses) is the SBI² framework: Situation, Behavior, Impact, Inquiry. I teach this framework weekly, and I use it daily in all aspects of my life, personal and professional. It helps turn feedback from a "you vs. me" into an "us vs. the problem."
Research covering feedback studies found one consistent pattern: Feedback becomes less effective the moment it moves from specific behaviors and toward the person — their character, their competence, their worth. SBI² keeps everything anchored to observable behavior, which is the only thing either party can act on.
Situation: Name the specific context. Using vague terms like "always" or "lately" tends to invite defensiveness. Meanwhile, "In Tuesday's client call" describes the event with precision.
Behavior: Describe only what a camera would have captured — no interpretation, no motive-reading. "You interrupted me while I was presenting the budget," rather than "you were dismissive."
Impact: Share the actual effect on you, on others, on the work. "I felt undermined in front of the client," or "three people came to me afterward."
Inquiry has two parts: First, invite their perspective before drawing conclusions. Ask, "What was going on for you?" Most behavior that lands badly wasn't intended badly. Asking this question turns a feedback delivery into a conversation, and often surfaces information from the other person's perspective that can change the picture entirely. Second: "What should we do about this now?" This shifts the conversation from litigating the past to "here's what we're solving together." It gives the other person agency and co-ownership of the solution.
What's next
When my old boss and I conducted workshops, executive sessions, or presentations, we would debrief after each one. The two of us worked through what landed, what didn't, and what we'd each do differently. We agreed early on that this was best for the client and our relationship. Over time, it meant I knew where I stood and he knew where he stood. When something harder needed to be said, and it often did, we could have those conversations because the channel was already open and our feedback muscle was already built.
Feedback culture, done well, keeps hard conversations small because they happen early and often. It means building a culture where we say the thing, which is how we learn and how we ultimately get better.
If you're managing someone right now and you've been routing work around a conversation you haven't had, pick one thing: one situation, behavior, or impact. Say it this week. Make it positive feedback if you're looking for an easier onramp. But see what happens when you ask what was going on for them.