# Giving Feedback to Your Manager: Examples and How to Use Them Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/working-with-your-manager/giving-feedback-to-manager-examples/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/working-with-your-manager/giving-feedback-to-manager-examples.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving working with your manager at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer Real examples of giving feedback to your manager, positive and constructive, plus how to raise it safely, when to say it, and what to do if it lands badly. ## Key facts - Title: Giving Feedback to Your Manager: Examples and How to Use Them - Category: Working with Your Manager - Primary skill: Working with Your Manager - Related skills: Communication, Building Confidence - Primary keyword: giving feedback to manager examples - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/working-with-your-manager/giving-feedback-to-manager-examples/ ## What this page covers - Real examples of giving feedback to your manager, positive and constructive, plus how to raise it safely, when to say it, and what to do if it lands badly. - Practical guidance for giving feedback to manager examples - How this topic connects to Working with Your Manager ## Detailed explanation You know what you want to say. What stops you is that the person you want to say it to writes your review — so you go looking for examples of giving feedback to a manager before you risk your own words on it. The useful ones share the same three parts: one specific moment rather than a general complaint, an "I" statement rather than a verdict on their character, and one concrete change you would like to see. Deliver it privately, and deliver it while the moment is still recent. That structure is easy to copy. What the example banks tend to leave out is everything around it — whether to say anything at all, and what to do when it does not land the way you hoped. ## Is it actually safe to give your manager feedback? It depends on the organization, and that is a real answer rather than a hedge. Sources like The Muse describe upward feedback as encouraged where an open feedback culture already exists, and workable but requiring more care where it does not. The honest part most example lists skip is that some feedback should not be delivered directly at all. Atlassian, Lattice and BetterUp all recommend a judgment call first: your manager's temperament, the state of your relationship, and whether this feedback is genuinely essential rather than merely satisfying to say. When direct delivery looks unsafe, those same sources name the alternatives — an HR representative, or an anonymous 360-degree survey. If your instinct says the risk is real, that instinct is not cowardice and it is not unusual. On forums like TeamBlind, people ask outright whether they should ever give a manager negative feedback, and name the specific fear underneath: not being fired, but simply being disliked, or coming across as a whiner. ## How do you bring it up without sounding like you are complaining? Ask first. The single most consistent rule across Atlassian, Radical Candor and Lattice is to check whether your manager is open to feedback before you deliver any. It works as a courtesy, but it also works as a test — how they answer tells you how much to say next. Then put it somewhere ordinary. The recommended container is a [recurring one-on-one](/knowledge/working-with-your-manager/one-on-one-meeting-with-manager/), weekly or biweekly, rather than a meeting you specially convene. A request for an unscheduled talk reads as an escalation before you have said a word; the same sentence inside an existing rhythm reads as normal business. Timing does the rest of the work. Raise it while it is small and recent — several sources suggest referencing something from the past week or two. Months of accumulated frustration delivered at once cannot help but sound like a grievance, and it forces your manager to defend a pattern instead of adjusting one behavior. ## What are some examples of positive feedback for a manager? Nearly every large example bank — Quantum Workplace, Deel, Workhuman, Achievers, Frankli — splits its lists into positive and constructive, and puts positive first. That order is not politeness. Appreciation establishes that you are engaged rather than aggrieved, which is what allows a constructive point to register as input instead of as a complaint. Examples that recur across those sources: - "I really appreciate the clarity you provide on each new project." - "Thanks so much for helping me set clear, actionable goals for myself this year. Your guidance really kept me on the right track." - "I appreciate how you always make time for our team meetings and encourage open dialogue." Each names a specific behavior rather than praising the person in general. That is what makes them usable: your manager learns which thing to keep doing. ## What are some examples of constructive feedback for a manager? The pattern taught across Workhuman, Teamflect and Deel is an "I" construction tied to one observed instance — "I noticed," "I have felt," "when that happened, I" — rather than a characterization. The contrast matters. "You [micromanage](/knowledge/working-with-your-manager/how-to-deal-with-a-micromanager/)" is a verdict on who someone is, and invites defense. "I have felt my work is being closely monitored" is a report they can act on without conceding a character flaw. A worked example from those sources, structured the way they recommend: > "I want to share some feedback on how your management style may be coming across. Lately, I've felt like my work is being closely monitored, and I worry that small mistakes will lead to negative consequences. This has made it harder to work confidently. I'd appreciate a conversation about how we can build mutual trust and transparency around deliverables — perhaps with more proactive check-ins that don't feel overly scrutinizing." A shorter one, on unclear priorities: > "Thank you for setting broad goals for last month's project. While working to reach those goals, I found myself unsure of which was most important to our team." Notice what closes each: a single specific request, not an open complaint. Naming one change — a different check-in cadence, a clearer priority order — is what converts dissatisfaction into something solvable. Once you have the wording, though, the difficulty moves. Most people who reach this point can draft the sentence; what they cannot do yet is [say it out loud](/knowledge/confidence/confidence-at-work/) to someone with authority over them. That gap is less about vocabulary than about a handful of working habits, and it can be useful to know [where your strengths already sit](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) before the conversation rather than after it. ## Should you say it in person or put it in writing? In person, in almost every case. Feedback of this kind is sensitive and depends on being understood correctly, which is exactly the situation where a conversation beats a message — you can read the reaction and adjust, and neither of you leaves a permanent record of a half-formed thought. Writing suits things that need documenting or that only travel one way; this is neither. One qualifier that appears everywhere: do it privately. Never in front of the team unless your manager has explicitly invited it. A point that would land fine one-on-one becomes a public challenge to their standing the moment there is an audience, and that is the version they will remember. ## What should you write in an anonymous 360 or upward feedback survey? The same three parts still apply — specific instance, "I" framing, one concrete suggestion — but you lose the dialogue, so precision matters more. "Communication could be better" gives your manager nothing to act on. "Project priorities were set at the start of the month but changed several times without an update, which made it hard to know what to work on" gives them something they can actually change. Write it as though it will be read aloud without your name attached, because effectively it will be. Anything that only makes sense as an accusation will read as one. ## What if your manager gets defensive? Assume it is possible, because most guidance stops at delivery and says almost nothing about this moment. If they push back, do not argue the interpretation. Return to the specific thing you observed, drop the conclusion you drew from it, and let the point sit — you have delivered it, and they do not have to agree with you in real time for it to have registered. A defensive first reaction is also not a verdict on the relationship. People often respond better after a day than in the moment, and a short follow-up in your next one-on-one — checking whether it landed, rather than repeating the criticism — usually tells you more than the original reaction did. ## What if nothing changes after you have said it? Nothing changing is a normal outcome, not evidence you did it wrong. Decide deliberately what to do next rather than letting it turn into resentment. Usually that means raising it once more, in different words, tied to a fresh example — a second data point is far more persuasive than a repeat of the first. If it still does not move, the choice is between accepting it as a fixed condition of the job and deciding it matters enough to escalate or to [change your situation](/knowledge/setting-goals/when-to-leave-a-job/). Both are legitimate. What tends to do damage is the third option: saying nothing further and quietly withdrawing. ## The skills that make this conversation easier Read back over those answers and the same few capabilities keep turning up under different questions — how you handle the relationship, how you construct the sentence, and whether you can get it out of your mouth. **Working with Your Manager** is the one doing the most work here. It treats the relationship as a partnership with a shared purpose rather than a hierarchy you submit to, which is what makes disagreement legitimate rather than insubordinate — and it is where the honest-even-when-it-is-risky instinct comes from. The recurring, prepared one-on-one is not a scheduling detail in this skill; it is the container that makes feedback ordinary instead of exceptional. **Communication** covers the delivery. Giving feedback and expressing disagreement are among the genuinely tricky situations this skill addresses, and its habits are visible in every example above: state the main point first, keep it brief, be clear and direct, and choose a conversation over writing when the subject is sensitive. Those are learnable moves, not natural talents. **Building Confidence** is what closes the gap between a drafted sentence and a spoken one. It works by deciding in advance exactly when and how you will act, then acting while still uncomfortable, rather than waiting for the nerves to pass first. Rehearsing your opening line the night before is a small version of exactly that. If you want to know which of these three is already solid for you and which is the one actually holding this conversation back, a **free seven-minute assessment** will tell you — and it covers the full set of twelve work skills the framework treats as buildable, so you can find out [which ones matter most](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) rather than guessing. ## Where this leaves you Some of this may already describe how you operate — the instinct to raise things early, or the care you take with how something is worded. Those are not fixed endowments. They are behaviors, which means the parts that do not yet feel natural are simply parts you have not built yet, and you can build them without becoming someone else at work. Skills like these tend to carry more weight as your responsibilities grow, because the conversations get harder rather than easier, and there is no point at which being able to speak honestly to the person above you stops being useful. You went looking for the right words before you opened your mouth. That is preparation, and it is the step most people skip entirely on their way to either saying nothing or saying it badly. ## Find out where your skills stand The only thing left is to see what you are already working with. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your work skills — you answer a series of questions and get a profile showing where you currently stand across all twelve, including the three behind this conversation, and which ones would make the biggest difference to focus on next. Nothing to prepare, and you can take it before you decide whether to have the conversation at all. **[Take the test](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/)** Free to take, and about seven minutes from start to finish. ## Who this is for - Professionals building practical workplace skills - Readers looking for specific, usable work advice - Managers, educators, and coaches supporting career readiness ## Common questions ### What is this guide about? Real examples of giving feedback to your manager, positive and constructive, plus how to raise it safely, when to say it, and what to do if it lands badly. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Working with Your Manager. It also relates to Communication, Building Confidence. ### What is the recommended next step? Use the free Work Skills Test to reflect on which work skill to improve next. ## Related pages - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/working-with-your-manager.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/communication.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/confidence.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/working-with-your-manager/giving-feedback-to-manager-examples/ Preferred summary: "Real examples of giving feedback to your manager, positive and constructive, plus how to raise it safely, when to say it, and what to do if it lands badly." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.