SBI Feedback Model: Giving Clear, Behaviour-Focused Feedback at Work

Feedback becomes unhelpful when it is vague, delayed, personal or based on assumptions about motive. Phrases such as “be more professional”, “you need a better attitude” or “great work” often leave the recipient unsure what happened, why it mattered and what to continue or change. The SBI feedback model provides a simple structure for making workplace feedback more specific and constructive.

The practical answer: describe the specific Situation, the observable Behaviour and its Impact. Then listen, explore intention where relevant and agree what should continue, change or be supported.

The Center for Creative Leadership describes SBI as a three-part approach: specify the situation, describe observable behaviour without judgement and explain the positive or negative impact. It also recommends asking about intention, turning one-way feedback into a two-way conversation about the difference between intended and experienced impact (Center for Creative Leadership, 2025).

What does SBI stand for?

Element	What to describe	What to avoid
Situation	The specific time, place, task or interaction	Generalisations such as “you always” or “recently”
Behaviour	What the person said or did that could be observed	Labels, mind-reading or character judgements
Impact	The effect on people, work, customers, quality, risk or outcomes	Claims about intention that cannot be verified

The model helps separate facts from interpretation. “In Monday’s handover meeting, you interrupted the service adviser twice before they had completed the customer update” is an observation. “You were disrespectful and did not care” is an interpretation. The first creates a basis for discussion; the second is more likely to invite defensiveness without clarifying the behaviour.

How to use SBI in a workplace conversation

Situation: provide a clear anchor

Start by identifying the particular context. This allows the other person to recall the event and prevents feedback from becoming a list of vague historic grievances. The situation may be a meeting, customer call, project decision, handover, performance review, presentation or written communication.

A useful situation statement is concise: “During yesterday’s project review…” or “On the customer call at 10am on Tuesday…”. The aim is relevance and clarity, not a detailed reconstruction of the whole event.

Behaviour: describe what was observable

Describe what was said, done or omitted. Avoid assumptions about attitude, personality or motive. Where possible, use language that a neutral observer could recognise. “The report was submitted after the agreed deadline” is observable. “You are unreliable” is a conclusion about the person.

Behaviour-focused language is not necessarily soft. It can address significant issues clearly. The difference is that it identifies the action that needs discussion rather than attacking identity. This gives the recipient something concrete to understand, explain or change.

Impact: explain why it mattered

Impact connects the behaviour to its consequence. It may affect a colleague, customer, quality, cost, delivery, safety, confidence, inclusion, workload or decision-making. Positive feedback should identify impact too. “That was a useful presentation” is less helpful than explaining how the presentation enabled a decision or clarified a complex issue.

Impact statements should be proportionate and evidence-led. A manager can describe the impact they observed or experienced, but should not assume intent. A useful formulation is: “The impact was that the team did not have the information needed to confirm the next step, so the decision was delayed.”

Examples of SBI feedback

Purpose	Situation	Behaviour	Impact
Reinforce effective practice	“In the client meeting on Thursday…”	“…you summarised the client’s priorities before proposing options.”	“…this confirmed understanding and helped the client make a decision with confidence.”
Improve team inclusion	“During Monday’s planning meeting…”	“…you responded before two newer colleagues had finished explaining their concerns.”	“…their operational insight was not fully considered, and they appeared less willing to contribute later.”
Address quality risk	“In the final review of the supplier report…”	“…the data source was not checked against the latest version before the recommendation was sent.”	“…the recommendation had to be withdrawn and the team spent additional time correcting it.”
Support development	“During the handover last week…”	“…you explained the new process step by step and checked understanding.”	“…the new starter completed the task independently the following day.”

The examples should not be copied as scripts. The value of SBI comes from using real, specific evidence. Feedback that is technically structured but inaccurate, exaggerated or disconnected from the recipient’s work will still be unhelpful.

Turning SBI into a dialogue: intention and inquiry

SBI is often most effective when it is followed by a genuine question. The manager may not know what information, constraint or intention shaped the behaviour. Asking enables correction of assumptions and can reveal a system issue rather than an individual problem.

For example, after describing a delayed report and its impact, a manager might ask: “What was happening from your perspective?” The employee may explain that an essential data source was unavailable, priorities were conflicting or they did not understand the quality expectation. The next conversation can then address the right issue: workload, capability, systems, clarity, resourcing or a behavioural choice.

This does not mean that accountability disappears. It means accountability is based on a fuller understanding of the conditions in which work occurred. A manager can still set a clear expectation, agree support and explain what needs to happen next.

After SBI, ask…	Why it matters
What was your intention in that situation?	Distinguishes intended purpose from experienced impact
What information or constraint was relevant?	Identifies capability, workload, system or role-clarity issues
How do you see the impact?	Tests shared understanding rather than assuming agreement
What would you do differently next time?	Encourages ownership and practical learning
What support or clarity is needed?	Connects feedback to development and organisational responsibility

Positive feedback and developmental feedback

SBI is useful for positive feedback as well as developmental feedback. Specific positive feedback makes effective behaviour visible and more likely to be repeated. It also avoids the common problem of teams receiving detailed attention only when something goes wrong.

Developmental feedback should be timely enough to remain relevant, but not delivered impulsively when either party is too emotionally activated to think clearly. The manager should consider privacy, context, psychological safety and the seriousness of the issue. A brief coaching conversation may be appropriate for a routine performance matter. A formal process may be necessary for sustained underperformance, misconduct, discrimination, harassment, bullying, safety concerns or a policy breach.

Feedback context	Appropriate use of SBI	Additional requirement
Positive contribution	Reinforce the exact behaviour and its value	Invite reflection on what enabled the success
Routine performance improvement	Clarify the event, behaviour and impact	Agree an expectation, support and follow-up
Complex or repeated performance issue	Use SBI to create factual clarity	Gather evidence, consider patterns and follow fair performance processes
Serious conduct or safeguarding concern	Use factual language when documenting observations	Follow organisational policy, HR, legal, safeguarding or investigation procedures; SBI is not a substitute

An original workplace application

Consider a fictional organisation, Harbour Lane Logistics, where a supervisor, Noor, notices that a dispatch coordinator, Sam, has recently sent incomplete updates to drivers. The effect is that drivers receive last-minute changes and customer delivery windows are missed. Noor’s first instinct is to say: “You need to be more organised.” That statement is unlikely to reveal why the problem is occurring or what needs to change.

Using SBI, Noor says: “In the last two afternoon dispatch updates, including Tuesday’s update at 3pm, the revised delivery sequence was sent without the new customer access notes. The impact was that two drivers arrived without the information they needed, one delivery had to be rescheduled and the team spent time dealing with avoidable calls. What was happening from your perspective?”

Sam explains that the access notes have recently moved to a new system and the dispatch screen does not flag when they are missing. The conversation identifies both a behaviour issue—Sam needs to check the new source before sending an update—and a system issue—the process lacks a visible prompt. Noor agrees a short checklist, raises the system problem with the operations lead and reviews the next week of dispatch quality with Sam.

The feedback was direct, but it did not reduce the issue to a judgement about Sam’s character. It produced a clearer accountability agreement and surfaced an operating-system weakness that could affect others.

Common SBI mistakes

Mistake	Why it weakens feedback	Better approach
Starting with a label	Labels such as “defensive”, “lazy” or “unprofessional” trigger debate about identity	Describe the actual words, actions or omissions
Giving a long list of past examples	The recipient cannot identify the most important issue	Choose the most relevant event and discuss patterns separately with evidence
Assuming intent	A manager may not know why a person acted as they did	Describe impact, then ask about intention and context
Using SBI as a scripted criticism technique	The conversation becomes one-way and performative	Invite response, listen and agree a next step
Ignoring positive contributions	People receive no clear picture of effective behaviour to repeat	Use the same specificity to reinforce good practice
Using it instead of formal process	Serious concerns require proper safeguards and investigation	Follow policy and seek appropriate HR, legal or safeguarding support

SBI also depends on organisational conditions. Feedback cannot solve unrealistic workload, unclear roles, inadequate training, conflicting targets or poor systems by itself. Leaders should be willing to ask whether the environment makes the expected behaviour possible. Otherwise, feedback becomes a way of individualising a systemic problem.

CMI 503 and CIPD 3CO04 relevance

SBI is relevant to CMI 503: Principles of Managing and Leading Individuals and Teams to Achieve Success, where managers need to support performance, communication, development and team effectiveness. It is also relevant to CIPD 3CO04: Essentials of People Practice, where people professionals consider performance, development, working relationships and fair workplace practice.

For a team-management illustration, see the CMI 503 Managing and Leading Individuals and Teams example. For broader people-practice context, see the CIPD 3CO04 Essentials of People Practice example. This article is intentionally distinct from those unit examples: it explains a workplace feedback model, not academic feedback or assessor comments.

Frequently asked questions

What does SBI stand for in feedback?

SBI stands for Situation, Behaviour and Impact. It structures feedback around the specific context, observable action and resulting effect.

Can SBI be used for positive feedback?

Yes. Specific positive feedback helps people understand the behaviour that created value and is worth repeating. The Situation, Behaviour and Impact structure is useful for recognising effective practice as well as improving it.

Does SBI tell someone what to do next?

Not by itself. SBI creates clarity about what happened and why it mattered. A productive conversation should then explore intention and context, agree expectations and identify any support, capability or system changes needed.

Is SBI appropriate for disciplinary or grievance matters?

SBI can help leaders document observable facts, but it is not a substitute for a fair formal process. Serious conduct, discrimination, harassment, bullying, safety or safeguarding concerns must follow relevant organisational policy and professional advice.

References

Center for Creative Leadership (2025) Improve Talent Development With Our SBI Feedback Model. Available at: https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/sbi-feedback-model-a-quick-win-to-improve-talent-conversations-development/ (Accessed: 19 August 2026).

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) (2022) Performance feedback: an evidence review. Available at: https://www.cipd.org/en/knowledge/evidence-reviews/performance-feedback/ (Accessed: 19 August 2026).