Specifically, many reported actively working to change the way they saw the feedback - they’d think of upsetting or surprising information as helpful and productive data - something psychologists call cognitive reappraisal. Where so many of us pressure ourselves to push past our emotions and respond right away, these highly self-aware people gave themselves days or even weeks to bounce back from difficult feedback before deciding what to do next. But as we dug deeper into what they did next, we saw a clear pattern. One participant, a non-profit executive, quipped, “Are you kidding? I hate hearing that I’m not perfect!” We found this reassuring - even the most self-aware among us are still human. But they weren’t necessarily fond of the experience. These participants reported frequently seeking critical feedback that would help them improve. As renowned psychologist William Swann put it, when humans receive feedback that conflicts with our self-image, we “suffer the severe disorientation and psychological anarchy that occurs when recognize that very existence is threatened.”Īs part of a research program for my new book, Insight, my team conducted dozens of interviews with people who’d made dramatic improvements in their self-awareness. (Encouragingly, all three ended up making dramatic improvements once their initial emotions faded.)Īll of these reactions are completely understandable. Some especially memorable responses have included punching a wall, accusing me of making their feedback up, and crying so uncontrollably that we had to reschedule the session. In my 15 years as an organizational psychologist and executive coach, I’ve seen just about every possible reaction to critical feedback. Here are five empirically supported actions to help you hear critical feedback openly and calmly, intentionally mine it for insight, and harness it to improve without collateral damage to your confidence and self-concept. There are plenty of resources available on how to ask for critical feedback, but there’s comparatively little guidance on how to navigate the hard feedback we receive. It’s hard to know what is real and what should be filtered out. While critical feedback can frequently be given objectively and with the purest of motives, it can also be inaccurate and/or nefarious in nature: a coworker who wants to throw us off our game a boss who has completely unachievable expectations an employee who is scared to speak truth to power a friend who projects her own issues onto us. What’s more, we can’t take all feedback we receive at face value. It can make us defensive, angry, and self-conscious, which subsequently impairs our effectiveness. And indeed, leaders who ask for critical feedback are seen as more effective by superiors, employees, and peers, while those who seek primarily positive feedback are rated lower in effectiveness.īut processing and acting on negative feedback is not always easy. Negative feedback in particular can be valuable because it allows us to monitor our performance and alerts us to important changes we need to make. Research bears this out, suggesting that it’s a key driver of performance and leadership effectiveness.
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