You already know the conversation you need to have. You've been sitting on it for two weeks.

Most managers know feedback matters. Most managers also spend weeks avoiding it. They wait for performance review season. They tell themselves it's "not the right time." They soften it so much the message disappears entirely. Or they deliver it too hot and watch the relationship cool.

The result? The behaviour they needed to address keeps happening. The person never gets the chance to fix what they don't know is broken.

The SBI feedback model was built for exactly this problem. It gives you a structure so clear and specific that the hardest part stops being "what do I say?" It just becomes choosing to say it.

What follows: the structure, why it works, and exactly how to use it, with real scripts you can adapt right now.

‍

What Is the SBI Feedback Model?

SBI stands for Situation, Behaviour, Impact. It's a feedback framework developed by the Center for Creative Leadership and used in new manager training programs across high-performing organizations. Gallup research shows that managers account for at least 70% of variance in employee engagement, and Gallup also finds that only 26% of employees strongly agree the feedback they get helps them do better work. It's not that managers are silent. It's that the feedback they do give rarely lands.

The structure is this:

That's it. Three sentences. Done.

The power isn't in its simplicity. It's in what the structure forces you to do: be specific. You cannot vague your way through SBI. And specific feedback is the only feedback that actually changes behaviour.

‍

Why Vague Feedback Fails (And SBI Doesn't)

Most managers deliver difficult feedback like this:

• "You've been a bit hard to work with lately."
• "I think you could do better in meetings."
• "Your communication has been off."

These statements are technically true. They're also useless. The person receiving them has no idea what specifically happened, when it happened, or how to change it. The conversation produces defensiveness or confusion, rarely insight.

The manager gap that breaks teams isn't a gap in intention. Most managers genuinely want their people to grow. The gap is in the execution of feedback. Specifically, the failure to be concrete.

SBI forces concreteness at every step. Compare these two versions of the same message:

One of those creates a path to change. The other creates an argument.

‍

How to Use SBI: Real-World Examples

Positive Feedback (Don't Skip This)

SBI isn't only for hard conversations. It's for reinforcing what's working too, and most managers underuse it here.

Vague positive feedback: "Great job on that presentation."

SBI positive feedback: "In the board update this morning, when you answered the CFO's question about burn rate, you paused before answering and walked through the assumptions clearly. That response changed the room: I saw the CFO relax. That's the kind of moment that builds your credibility with leadership."

Which one would you rather receive? Which one would make you more likely to repeat the behaviour?

‍

Corrective Feedback

This is where managers stall. A full SBI example with delivery language:

Context: A team member was visibly disengaged in a client call.

"I want to share some feedback from the call with DataStream yesterday. During the second half of the call, when the client was walking through their project rollout concerns, you were looking at your phone and didn't respond when Marcus asked you a direct question. The client noticed. They mentioned it to me afterward, and it affected how they're thinking about the project going forward. I know that wasn't your intention, but I need you to understand the impact. Can we talk about what was going on?"

Notice what this does: it's specific, it's observable, and it ends with a question. Not a verdict. You're opening a conversation, not issuing a performance warning.

‍

When the Behaviour Is a Pattern

SBI works for one-time events. For patterns, you need to add frequency without drifting into vague generalizations.

"Over the last three team meetings, when we've been discussing timelines for the product launch, you've pushed back on almost every estimate with 'that's not realistic,' without offering an alternative. The impact is that the discussion gets stuck and the team leaves more confused than when we started. I want to understand your perspective, and I also want us to find a way you can raise concerns that moves us forward rather than backward."

This is direct. It might feel uncomfortable to deliver. That discomfort is appropriate: you're having a real conversation, not a safe one.

For more examples of how to frame feedback across different scenarios, see our manager feedback examples library: it covers positive reinforcement, performance concerns, and the harder interpersonal situations.

‍

The SBI-I Variation: Adding Intent

Some practitioners add a fourth element: I for Intent. After delivering SBI, you invite the person to share their perspective:

"That's what I observed and the impact it had. I'd like to understand: what was going on for you in that moment?"

This matters for two reasons. First, you might be wrong. The behaviour had context you didn't have. Second, even if you're right, giving someone the space to explain themselves makes them more likely to hear your feedback rather than defend against it.

SBI-I is especially useful in situations where the relationship is already stressed. If you sense someone might get defensive, the invitation to share their intent disarms the conversation before it escalates into the kind of conflict that requires a structured conflict resolution intervention or a clearing the air session to clean up.

‍

When to Deliver SBI Feedback

Research from Zenger and Folkman, published in Harvard Business Review, found that 57% of employees want more corrective feedback than they currently receive, and 72% said they would improve their performance if given more. The barrier isn't desire. It's delivery.

The rule is simple: as close to the behaviour as possible.

Feedback loses impact with time. A conversation on Thursday about something that happened Monday is already weakened. A conversation on Monday about something that happened Monday is sharp.

1. If emotions are running too high (yours or theirs): give it 24 hours, but not a week.
2. If the behaviour is a pattern, document your examples before the conversation so you have specifics across time.

One more timing rule: never deliver corrective feedback in front of others. SBI is a private conversation. Public correction is humiliation, not feedback, and it destroys psychological safety faster than almost anything else.

‍

How to Ask for Feedback Using SBI

SBI isn't just a tool for giving feedback: it's the language you should ask for feedback in.

Instead of: "How do you think I'm doing as a manager?"

Try: "I'd find it helpful if you could share an example, a specific situation, the behaviour you observed, and how it landed for you. Even something small."

This models the behaviour you want to receive. It also makes it easier for people to be honest, because you've given them a structure that reduces the risk of feeling like they're attacking you.

360 feedback processes work best when participants are coached to use SBI structure in their written responses. Vague survey ratings don't drive change. Specific, behavioural observations do.

‍

The Real Reason Managers Avoid Feedback

I've coached dozens of managers through feedback avoidance. And the reason almost always comes down to this: they're protecting themselves.

Specifically, they're afraid of the reaction. Afraid the person will get upset, go quiet, or worse, start to disengage. So they say nothing. Or they say something so softened that it has no signal left in it.

The uncomfortable truth: withholding feedback is not kindness. It's self-protection dressed up as consideration. When you don't tell someone their behaviour is having a negative impact, you're taking away their chance to fix it.

The hardest part of the SBI model isn't learning the framework. It's building the muscle to use it when the conversation is uncomfortable. That muscle is what separates good managers from great ones, and it's exactly what we build in the New Manager Training Program.

Ready to make feedback a habit instead of an event? The New Manager Playbook includes the full SBI cheatsheet, scripts for 12 common feedback scenarios, and a 30-day feedback practice framework.

 Frequently Asked Questions

‍