3 Easy Steps to Giving Difficult Feedback

Giving feedback, especially difficult feedback is one of the most requested skills by nurse preceptors.  Perhaps your preceptee has said something in front of a patient or family member.  Told you they are competent to do a complex dressing change that you find out by observing that they aren't competent or worse you've picked up on an attitude issue and now you, the preceptor, get to address the issue.  Is your heart rate up? Palms getting a bit sweaty? Clenching your jaw? You are not alone! Its interesting though because as a preceptor and then as a nurse manager who organized any nurse orientations I can say with certainly that 100% of the new nurses said "if I do something wrong, please tell me."  If that's the case then why are we so uncomfortable  giving difficult feedback?   In this episode we'll discuss the three easy steps you can take to give difficult feedback.