The leadership experts at FranklinCovey have released the essential guide to transforming into the great manager your team deserves. From Scott Jeffrey Miller with Todd Davis and Victoria Roos Olsson, Everyone Deserves a Great Manager provides the support and strategies you need to be a better leader. With permission from Simon & Schuster, Inc., we share an excerpt from the chapter, “Creating a Culture of Feedback.”

How many of us can remember the exact moment we received some difficult feedback? I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that feedback is often traumatic, for both the giver and the receiver. And yet Dr. Stephen R. Covey wrote, “One of the greatest gifts you can give another human being is constructive feedback on a blind spot they never knew they had. It’s a great disservice not to say what needs to be said just because it isn’t comfortable. Care enough to give honest, accurate feedback.”

Now, I can appreciate that my restaurant manager had the courage to tell it to me straight. He had the right intention, but the skills in this chapter would have helped him deliver sensitive feedback without an index card.