You can watch this Meme Lesson on Feedback on YouTube.

There is a test you can run on any piece of feedback before you give it. 

Most managers never do.

Because the behaviours you criticise hardest in other people most often are yours.

Likely, the manager who cannot stop giving feedback about punctuality was probably punished as a junior for being late.

The manager who obsessively flags indecisiveness in others is usually avoiding a decision of their own.

The manager who keeps noticing commercial thinking gaps in their team was, statistically, told they had one yesterday.

This is not a moral failing.

It is how human attention works.

We notice most sharply the things we are most sensitive about.

The problem is only that we then deliver those observations as objective assessments of someone else, and because we are their manager, they believe us.

The discipline is to run the test before the conversation.

Not during it.

Not after.

Before you open your mouth, ask yourself whether the feedback you are about to give would survive being said out loud to a peer who knows you well.

If it would, give it. If the peer would raise an eyebrow and ask what is actually going on with you today, postpone.

The feedback that survives self-examination is the only feedback worth giving.

Most do not.

That is not a problem to be ashamed of.

It is a discipline to be practised.