Susan DrummCEO Advisor & Executive Coach | Leadership Change Agent

Why Your Feedback Isn’t Working #shorts

18 Jul 2025 · 1 min

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Susan Drumm explains why common management training on feedback can fail: if the giver lacks self-awareness about how they come across, their delivery can undermine substance. She contrasts 'complying' tendencies (pleasing, belonging, passivity) that lead to sugarcoated feedback with 'protective' tendencies (arrogance, over-criticism) that produce harsh delivery. Central claim: effectiveness is often "10% substance and 90% delivery."

Questions this video answers

July 18, 2025

"10% substance and 90% delivery"

Chapters

Picture a management training on how to give effective feedback. If your employee hasn't done any leadership development, they might be following the script for how to give feedback, but the way they do it could still be ineffective. If they have complying tendencies such as pleasing, belonging, or passivity, they might still sugarcoat their feedback and water down the message. Or, in contrast, if your employee has protective tendencies such as being arrogant or critical, overly critical, they may deliver feedback in a way that's excessively harsh and unproductive. If your employee doesn't have the self awareness to know the way they are coming across, or how their own ego and desire to stay safe is influencing their delivery, the management training won't work. Or put another way, your effectiveness is often 10% substance and 90% delivery.