Why feedback on soft skills is subjective
Different managers, different standards, little evidence. What the interviews show, and what makes an assessment comparable.
In our research, the most frequent complaint was about feedback: it is too rare and too subjective to change behaviour. A subjective, biased assessment came up in about a quarter of the interviews.
Where the subjectivity comes from
- Each manager has a different standard for “good”.
- Feedback describes the person, not a specific moment of behaviour.
- There is little evidence of impact, so the result is an opinion.
- People are compared in different situations, so the comparison is not fair.
What makes an assessment comparable
Leaders named the same fixes: objective competency frameworks and continuous feedback for development. In SoftTrainer, the whole team gets one scenario and one scale. Every level has evidence: the exact moments of the conversation that the level rests on.
A level with evidence is something two managers can agree on.
Feedback then names a moment and a behaviour, not a trait. The person sees what to say differently next time, and the manager sees the same picture for the whole team.
Sources
SoftTrainer team