SBI Feedback Model for Leadership Conversations Training Course

Course overview

Leaders are often asked to address missed commitments, unproductive behaviours, strained working relationships and strong performance quickly, yet their feedback can become vague, overly personal or delayed. The result is defensiveness, repeated errors and inconsistent expectations across teams. This course equips managers to use the Situation–Behavior–Impact (SBI) Feedback Model to make leadership conversations observable, evidence-based and useful, whether the message is corrective, developmental or reinforcing.

Participants learn to separate facts from interpretation, select a relevant situation, describe specific behaviour without labels, and explain the operational, customer or team impact. They practise preparing SBI statements from workplace evidence; asking questions that invite the other person’s perspective; listening for context without abandoning accountability; and agreeing clear next actions. The programme also covers positive feedback, difficult feedback, feedforward, emotional self-management, documentation boundaries and adaptation of SBI for remote and cross-functional conversations.

Delivery combines instructor demonstration, individual drafting, small-group feedback labs, role-played leadership conversations and case analysis. Participants work with realistic scenarios such as repeated deadline slippage, poor meeting conduct, stakeholder complaints and high performance that deserves recognition. They leave with a personalised SBI Conversation Toolkit containing prepared SBI scripts, a conversation-planning template, question prompts, a follow-up action record and a 30-day workplace application plan.

This intermediate course is designed for professionals who already lead, supervise or influence others and need a repeatable method for handling feedback with clarity and consistency. It is equally valuable to managers seeking a practical way to improve performance conversations across their teams.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Construct evidence-based Situation–Behavior–Impact statements from workplace incidents
• Distinguish observable behaviour from assumptions, labels and personality judgements
• Prepare corrective, developmental and reinforcing feedback using an SBI conversation planner
• Deliver concise SBI feedback while maintaining a professional and respectful tone
• Use open questions and active-listening techniques to test context and invite response
• Convert feedback conversations into documented behavioural commitments and follow-up actions
• Adapt SBI feedback for remote meetings, cross-functional stakeholders and culturally varied teams
• Produce a 30-day SBI feedback application plan for live leadership situations

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Line Managers — who need to address day-to-day performance and conduct issues promptly
• Team Leaders — who must create clear behavioural expectations across operational teams
• Department Heads — who need a consistent feedback method for managers and direct reports
• Project Managers — who must address delivery behaviour across teams they may not directly manage
• HR Business Partners — who coach managers through difficult performance conversations
• Emerging Leaders — who are preparing to lead people and establish credible management habits

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience contributing to, supervising or leading workplace conversations where performance, behaviour or collaboration is discussed. They should be comfortable describing routine work situations, giving examples from their own role and participating in role-play practice. Familiarity with basic performance-management language, such as objectives, expectations, development actions and follow-up, is helpful. No prior formal coaching qualification, mediation training, psychometric tool or specialist HR system knowledge is required. A laptop is useful for live-online delivery and for completing templates, but participants do not need advanced software skills.

Training methodology

The instructor models the SBI structure using annotated leadership scenarios, then participants identify situations, behaviours and impacts in short cases before drafting their own feedback. Small groups test wording for specificity, neutrality and likely listener response. Facilitated role-plays cover corrective, developmental and reinforcing conversations, including resistance, emotion and remote delivery. Participants receive peer and instructor feedback against an SBI observation checklist. The final day uses an application clinic to convert real workplace issues into planned conversations, action records and a 30-day implementation plan.

Course outline

Day 1: Building the foundation for observable feedback

• Purpose and limits of the Situation–Behavior–Impact Feedback Model
• Difference between feedback, coaching, appraisal and disciplinary action
• Observable facts versus assumptions, labels and attribution errors
• Selecting a specific situation with time, place and context
• Identifying behaviours that can be seen, heard or verified
• Mapping operational, customer, team and individual impacts
• Using positive SBI feedback to reinforce desired standards

Workshop: Participants analyse a workplace case and produce three evidence-based SBI statements for corrective, developmental and positive feedback.

Day 2: Designing clear and balanced SBI conversations

• The SBI conversation-planning template
• Writing neutral behaviour descriptions without loaded language
• Choosing impact statements that connect to work outcomes
• Matching feedback purpose to urgency, risk and relationship context
• Balancing directness with respect in leadership language
• Preparing opening statements and transition phrases
• Recognising when SBI needs additional fact-finding before delivery

Workshop: Participants convert ambiguous feedback examples from their own work into planned SBI openings, impact statements and intended outcomes.

Day 3: Conducting two-way feedback discussions

• Opening an SBI conversation and setting its purpose
• Open questions for eliciting context and the other person’s view
• Active-listening methods: paraphrasing, summarising and checking understanding
• Managing defensiveness without diluting the behavioural message
• Separating explanation from excuse in performance discussions
• Using silence, pacing and emotional self-management
• Closing with shared understanding and agreed next steps

Workshop: In triad role-plays, participants deliver an SBI conversation, respond to resistance and complete an observer checklist.

Day 4: Applying SBI to complex leadership situations

• Corrective SBI feedback for missed commitments and quality failures
• Developmental SBI feedback for capability and leadership behaviour
• Reinforcing SBI feedback for high performance and team standards
• Feedforward questions that turn impact into future behaviour
• Adapting SBI for virtual meetings and written follow-up
• Cross-functional feedback where formal authority is limited
• Cultural and power-distance considerations in direct feedback

Workshop: Teams work through a cross-functional delivery failure case and produce an SBI conversation plan, feedforward questions and follow-up message.

Day 5: Embedding feedback discipline in leadership practice

• Documenting facts, commitments and review dates after feedback
• Linking SBI conversations to objectives and development plans
• Escalation boundaries for conduct, grievance and formal performance matters
• Using an SBI observation checklist for manager peer practice
• Creating regular feedback cadences in one-to-ones and project reviews
• Measuring behavioural change through follow-up evidence
• Building a personal 30-day SBI feedback implementation plan

Workshop: Participants conduct a final assessed role-play and produce a personal SBI Conversation Toolkit with two live conversation plans and a 30-day action schedule.

Tools & standards covered

Center for Creative Leadership SBI Feedback Model, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Miro

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions