Most aspiring leaders know the importance of feedback. Indeed, giving feedback might be the most important leadership skill because it's tied so closely to growth, and without growth you have stagnation. You don't need a leader for something going nowhere.
Giving feedback is certainly the most unnatural leadership skill. Most people don't really give feedback unless they are in a specific kind of situation - offices, classrooms, workshops. This means that unlike most other skills, leaders don't have a wealth of life experience to supplement their learned abilities. Perhaps this explains why most people give terrible feedback.
The best recommendation I have for giving good feedback is to avoid dwelling on irrelevant weaknesses. This doesn't mean ignore all weaknesses, it just means focus on the small handful that might prove lethal to goals, aspirations, or growth. Everything else, just ignore it.
Imagine if a basketball coach tried to teach Steph Curry how to shoot with his left hand! You could say that this coach identified Curry's the biggest skill deficit while managing to prove a complete lack of coaching credentials. The best feedback would help Curry apply his transcendent right-handed shooting to a greater range of situations. It works the same way for anyone else - the best feedback acknowledges someone's strengths by pointing out one or two ways to apply that strength across an even wider range of opportunities.
