Has Amazon ever left the wrong package at your door? Without looking at the label, you brought it inside, opened it, and only then realized it wasn’t for you?
We should all learn to check the label first. Not every package delivered to our door is ours.
Feedback is the same way. Some of it is useful and worth receiving while some isn’t ours in the first place.
One of the most important leadership skills is learning how to offer feedback without making others feel small. For those on the receiving end, it’s learning how to accept it without making it your identity.
Feedback Has Power
Given well, feedback builds trust, improves performance, and helps people grow faster. Given poorly, it creates defensiveness, resentment, confusion, or withdrawal.
Received well, feedback can sharpen your judgment. Received poorly, it can crush your confidence or keep you blind to something you need to see.
Whether giving or receiving, it helps to understand the difference between criticism and correction.
Criticize or Correct?
Criticism tends to tear down with judgment, frustration, or disappointment. Correction seeks to build with clarity, direction, and the possibility of growth.
Criticism says, “Here is what’s wrong with you.”
Correction says, “Here’s what happened, here’s the impact, and here’s what would be more helpful next time.”
People can usually handle the truth when it’s delivered with respect. Smart leaders don’t avoid hard conversations, but they also don’t use honesty as an excuse for harshness. They tell the truth in a way that gives the other person a path forward.
Receiving Feedback
We often mishandle feedback in one of two ways.
We absorb every word as criticism that is automatically true. We think, “I failed. I’m not good enough. I always mess this up.”
Or we dismiss it as unfair. We defend our intentions, protect our ego, and miss what might be useful.
Neither extreme helps. The better path is curiosity using the word “could.” When feedback comes your way, before you accept it or reject it, ask:
What part of this could be true or useful?
What part of this could be about them, not me?
“Could” allows you to consider the feedback without surrendering your identity to it. It helps you look for the lesson, separating useful corrections from someone else’s stress, assumptions, preferences, or poor delivery.
Giving Feedback
When you’re the one giving feedback, the key is to correct, not criticize. This begins with checking your true intention before you speak. Ask yourself:
Am I addressing the behavior, or attacking the person?
Am I offering a way forward, or venting my frustration and disappointment?
Once you have clarity, simply deliver the truth in a way someone can use, citing what you observed, the impact it had, and what to do next time.
Better Feedback Builds Faster Growth
If you want to grow faster in your career, get better at receiving feedback. If you want to be more effective as a leader, helping others grow faster, get better at offering it.
The next time feedback shows up at your door, check it before you bring it inside. The next time you’re about to drop feedback at someone else’s door, check it before you leave it.
In both cases, keep what’s useful. Return the rest.
Jo-Aynne
Knowing isn't doing. You can turn insight into action. 👇
Jo-Aynne Von Born, Leadership/Executive Coach
www.readysetmore.com
