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Free tools for HR leaders

Leadership
performance review phrases

26 phrases across four rating bands, for reviewing managers and team leads. Filter, copy, print. Free, no sign-up.

Start with the rating band that matches the person, then pick the voice you are writing in. Copy a phrase, then change the specifics so it names the real project, the real quarter, the real thing that happened. A comment that could describe anyone is the thing you were trying to avoid.

How these were written, and the five steps to a review that holds up ↓
Rating:
Voice:
26 showing
Exceeds expectations

Made the unpopular call on [decision] early, explained the reasoning, and the team moved with it rather than around it.

Manager to employee

Grew two people into work they could not have done a year ago, and let them take the credit for it.

Manager to employee

Protected the team from a reprioritisation that would have wasted a quarter, and made the trade-off visible upward rather than absorbing it silently.

Manager to employee

Ready for a wider remit. The constraint now is scope, not capability.

Coaching

Worth making their decision-making explicit to the team. Ask them to narrate the next hard call rather than just making it.

Coaching

I made the call on [decision] before I had complete information, wrote down why, and revisited it publicly when one assumption turned out wrong.

Self-evaluation

Two people on my team took on work this year that I would have kept myself last year.

Self-evaluation
Meets expectations

Sets clear expectations and people know where they stand without having to interpret.

Manager to employee

Gives feedback close to the event rather than saving it for the review.

Manager to employee

Runs meetings that end with decisions and owners rather than a general sense of alignment.

Manager to employee

Manages the work well. The next step is managing the people: development conversations that are not attached to a delivery problem.

Coaching

Good with the team in front of them. Worth practising influence sideways, where there is no reporting line to fall back on.

Coaching

I moved feedback closer to the event this year, which made the reviews shorter and much less of a surprise to anybody.

Self-evaluation

I have got better at ending meetings with a named owner rather than a shared understanding.

Self-evaluation
Needs development

Tends to solve the problem personally rather than build the person who could solve it next time.

Manager to employee

Difficult feedback is delayed until it has to be given, by which point it is heavier than it needed to be.

Manager to employee

Direction changes without the reasoning attached, so the team re-plans without understanding what to protect.

Manager to employee

Next time you are about to fix something yourself, ask whether it is a two-hour saving now or a recurring cost for the rest of the year.

Coaching

Try giving one piece of critical feedback within 48 hours of the event this quarter. Early and small beats accurate and late.

Coaching

I step in too quickly when something is going wrong, which fixes the week and does not build the person.

Self-evaluation

I have sat on difficult feedback longer than I should have, and it landed harder because of the delay.

Self-evaluation
Unsatisfactory

Team members have raised that expectations are unclear or change without explanation, and this has been discussed before.

Manager to employee

Development conversations have not happened for most of the team this year, despite being agreed as a priority in [month].

Manager to employee

This needs to be specific and scheduled: a documented one-to-one with each report, monthly, starting now, reviewed in six weeks.

Coaching

The delivery record is not the issue. The issue is that it is being achieved in a way the team cannot sustain, and that is the part I need to change.

Coaching

I have prioritised delivery over developing my team this year, and the retention and capability cost of that is now visible.

Self-evaluation
No phrases match those two filters together. Clear one of them.
How do you write a performance review for a manager?

Rate the leadership behaviour, not the team's output. A manager whose team hit every number by burning out two people has a leadership problem, and the review should say so in the year it happened.

How these were written

Written, not calculated. Each phrase names a situation, an observable leadership behaviour and its effect on the team. Bands run from exceeds expectations to unsatisfactory, and the voice axis switches between a manager writing about a leader, coaching that leader, and a leader writing their own self-evaluation. A strong delivery record achieved in a way the team cannot sustain belongs in a lower band, not a higher one.

Assumptions
  • Phrases are starting points. Name the real decision, the real person developed, the real trade-off made visible.
  • Leadership is rated separately from delivery. They correlate, and merging them is how a delivery-strong, people-poor manager gets promoted.
  • The team's experience is evidence. If you have engagement or exit data, it belongs in this conversation more than your impression of the leader does.
  • Written for Australian workplaces and Australian English.
  • Unsatisfactory-band comments assume a dated record and a prior conversation.
Sources

What to do about it

The most common leadership review failure is rating the numbers and calling it leadership. The second most common is discovering the real finding at an exit interview, six months after it could have been acted on.

1

Separate the two ratings before you write anything

What the team delivered, and how the leader got them there. Write them as different sentences.

2

Get the team's experience into the room

Engagement results, exit reasons, one-to-one frequency. Without it you are rating the leader on their relationship with you.

3

Ask what they built, not just what they shipped

Who can do something now that they could not a year ago. A leader who developed nobody had a good delivery year, not a good leadership year.

4

Give every gap a mechanism and a date

Scheduled one-to-ones, a development plan per report, a decision log. Leadership feedback without a mechanism becomes a conversation about character.

5
Where a tool helps

Check what the pattern says across your leaders

If development conversations are not happening anywhere, that is a system you built, not five individual failings.

The team already knows.
Now you can too.

Compono Engage reads how a team is actually working, so a leader's real effect on the people around them shows up as evidence while there is still time to change it, rather than at an exit interview.

Step 5 asks what the pattern says across your leaders. That is a question about teams, and it is one review documents are very badly placed to answer.

See how it works
Compono Engage
8%+
reduction in turnover

Common questions

What are examples of good leadership feedback?

Making an unpopular call early and explaining it, growing somebody into work they could not previously do, making a trade-off visible upward instead of absorbing it silently.

How do you tell a manager their leadership needs work?

Anchor it to what the team experienced, with examples, and pair it with a specific mechanism such as scheduled one-to-ones. Leadership feedback without a mechanism becomes a character conversation.

Should you review leadership separately from delivery?

Yes. They correlate but they are different findings, and merging them is how a delivery-strong, people-poor manager gets promoted.

Can I use these phrases word for word?

Yes, with the specifics changed. Leadership comments in particular need the real decision and the real team named, or they read as generic praise.

These phrases are starting points, not finished comments. Change the specifics so each one is true of the actual person and the actual situation, because a comment that could describe anyone is the thing you were trying to avoid. Review comments can later be read as evidence in an employment matter, so anything you take from the unsatisfactory band should match a dated record you already hold. Last reviewed July 2026.

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