Mike, you like your feedback dished up that way and good on you.  I don't like it though and I would offer some others especially women who are high on empathy and agreeableness personality wouldn't either.  That delivery of feedback would invoke my amygdala (fight or flight response) which blocks the use of the brain's prefrontal cortex ( execultive functions of reason, critical thinking, problem solving etc).  I was a secondary education teacher back in the day, raised a family and now work in HR in private industry & as an Exucutive Assistant. It is on leaders & coaches  to educate themselves as to the 5 personality styles ( eg. Jordan Perterson personality test), interpersonal communication skills( eg. 7 habits of highly successful people- Stephen Covey) and just how to engage people so that there is trust and set up your personal interaction for success.  "Start with the end in mind", as Sephen Covey says and that would be I would think that you want your staff member to hear you, understand you and be on board to change and grow. That is not happening if my brain tells me there is danger, I'm not safe and I need to protect myself and all my energy goes to that and nothing else.  It is on any teacher, leader, coach, parent  to start where the other person is at, fiqure out what that is and what they need, understand what boundries have been crossed on your end and then deliver your message to engage their prefrontal cortex.  It's on you not them for that to happen  and then it is on them to choose their response now that their emotions are regulated.  That's my offering anyway and thanks for listening to the end.

Also Mike let's not mistake delivery of feedback as"nice & maybe even passive aggressive" for "kind, firm & constructive".  I know there is a lot of entitlement out there and lord help us also victomhood. I wonder if that is what you are writing about.  I get it because I have experienced that too with a few. I would offer that a strong employment contract, position description and performance assessment tool ( including a self-assessment as part of it)  that ties into the first two, as well as a fair & effective progressive discipline policy & procedures can really help to address entitlement and victomhood or other.  Be as proactive as you can to head misaligned expectations of performance ( behavior, attitude & production) between employer & employee off at the pass as it were. So in practice that is utilizing that first rung of the progressive discipline chain of having a private conversation & coaching "chat" sooner rather than later when a supervisor/manager detects a pattern emerging or other evidence of misalignment of performance expectations.  Always though with the goal of skillfully continuing to build a trust relationship.  A trust relationship can withstand constuctive feedback that sets up for success continuous improvement, accountability and best practice. Remember, the #1 reason that employees leave is because of their supervisor/manager and all employers want to optimize engagement and retention.  What employers can control is how they lead and effective leaders have your confidence as well as strong interpersonal skills and well defined and executed company policies, procedures and practices. Look up "Athoritative Leadership" or "Stewart Leadership" as two leadership styles that I believe have what you want to deliver.