Feedback is a gift! Leadership feedback is a huge favor! I am sure you have heard the phrase – feedback is a gift. What is the feedback? Why is it a gift? And why is leadership feedback a big favor? These are the points I am going to cover in this article.
What is the feedback?
Simply put, feedback is any information you receive about yourself. Feedback may be subtle, or it may be obvious. Any of the following fits the bill of feedback.
- Review of your cooking by a friend
- Your spouse’s comment about your outfit!
- Your spouse’s comment about your outfit!
- When your son’s eyes light up when he sees you in the audience at the school play
- When you are the last one to be picked on a team!
- When you wear a sweater that your mom knit
- When the colleague doesn’t invite you for her b’day party
- How many likes (or not) on social media
- Your boss’s feedback on your work
- Your annual performance review
- A formal 360-degree feedback
Feedback is what gets ranked, judged, thanked, commented on. In fact, feedback is everywhere if we observe closely
History of feedback
The term feedback originated as a scientific term in the 19th century. The feedback loop was used in electrical and sound circuits. After the 2nd World War, industrial relations and performance management were started in organizations. The management version of the feedback started then. Feed corrective information back (to the workers) – and hence the feedback. Today the term is widely used in both personal and professional contexts.
Why is feedback a gift?
Let us think of a successful consumer product. How do you improve it? The simple method to improve it is to ask some representative sample of consumers. Ask them to rate the product. Then ask them for suggestions on how to improve the product. Without feedback from customers, there is little chance of improvement.
As it is true for a consumer product, it is also equally true for us as individuals and employees. How do I become a better friend? Ask my friends for feedback and suggestions to become a better friend. How do I dress better? Well, ask for feedback from others on your dressing. Then ask how you can dress better. How do you become a better spouse? A better father? A better sister? Well, you get it by now. Ask for feedback on how you are doing currently, and then ask how you can become better.
Feedback is a gift because feedback allows you to improve. There can be no improvement without feedback. Feedback is essential for learning and growth.
In today’s workplace, feedback plays a crucial role in developing talent, improving morale, aligning teams, solving problems, and boosting the bottom line.
Leadership feedback is a huge favor.
As we move up the career ladder, the quality and quantity of feedback go down. When we are in a position of power, people avoid giving us honest feedback in managerial or leadership positions. We only get watered down feedback or even plain flattery. Why? First of all, we are uncomfortable giving honest and candid feedback to someone to their face. Secondly, they may be in danger of facing the consequences. The leader may retaliate, punish, or give a lower performance rating, or hold back a promotion.
When a team member gives honest feedback to a leader on her face, he is doing the leader huge favor. They are overcoming two things. First is the discomfort of telling someone the unpleasant truth. Second, they are taking a risk to their standing, reputation, punitive consequences, or career growth. Hence their leadership feedback is a huge favor. Feedback is a gift.
What is even more interesting is that they could have chosen to share the same feedback to others – behind your back and unknown to you. They chose to give you feedback on your face. Probably because they care and they want you to improve. If they talk behind your back, you would not know. And it will deprive you of the opportunity to get better.
Read: Leadership feedback and the CEO disease.
If feedback is a gift, why is it so painful?
If feedback is a gift, why does it feel more like a dentist appointment to pull out a tooth? Why do we tend to avoid it? Why are we afraid of it? Why do we tend to reject it?
We often complain about a spouse’s snide remark on our dressing. We hate our mother in law’s critical review of our cooking. We may dislike our colleague’s candid comments on our presentation. As employees and leaders in organizations – we dislike performance reviews and 360-degree feedback.
Read: Leadership lessons I learned from my son about feedback vs. feedforward
Feedback sits at the intersection of these two basic human needs.
According to author Sheila Heen, receiving feedback sits at the intersection of two basic human needs.
First is our drive to learn. Human beings are naturally wired for learning. A human baby comes into the world with just a few basic survival skills. And yet, we teach ourselves to walk, to talk, and hundreds of other skills. We love learning. But learning about ourselves, especially honest and critical feedback, is not a pleasant experience. And the culprit is our second basic human need.
The second need is our longing for acceptance.
We all want to be loved, cared for, respected and accepted for who we are. Candid feedback makes us feel like we are being rejected. We feel like we are not enough. It hurts our pride and wounds our ego.
The tug of war between these two basic human needs – our need to be loved and accepted as we are and our need to learn and grow – is the main reason for the unpleasantness of receiving feedback.
Accepting feedback is a gift.
Do you remember a special teacher or a mentor in your life? Why are they special, and why do we remember them fondly? Because they taught us a lot. They helped us learn and grow. How? By giving us feedback in a loving, caring, and supporting way. The way they gave us feedback didn’t cause resistance. In fact, it may have challenged or inspired us to do better. It is great to have such teachers and mentors in our life.
But they are a rare breed. The rest of the people in your life who will give you feedback are mere mortals, just like you and me. If we reject feedback from everyone else, we are depriving ourselves of learning and growth. We cannot hold back our learning waiting for such special mentors. We need to learn to accept feedback as a gift – from everyone else around us.
How do we learn to accept all feedback as a gift?
By recognizing the three triggers that stop us from doing that. The three triggers are
1. The truth triggers:
The content of the feedback itself sets truth triggers off. We think that the feedback is wrong, unhelpful, or simply untrue. We think that their advice is wrong, their evaluation is unfair, who they are to tell me about this, don’t know the whole story, etc. We may go into the defensive mode or even counterattack. Sometimes we do it in real conversations, but almost always in our minds! We replay the tape again and again – with our own editing.
When your spouse tells you that you were aloof during the visit to the in-laws – it triggers a defensive mechanism. You may retort by saying, was I supposed to tap dance and greet everyone?
2. The relationship triggers
The relationship triggers are set off by the person giving the feedback. The feedback is tainted by the relationship between you and the feedback giver. What authority do they have on this topic to give me feedback? Or after all the things I have done for you, this is how you repay? The emotional baggage and the long history of the relationship may come in the way of our ability to listen to and understand the feedback. We go into counter-attack mode and discredit the feedback giver.
When your boss criticizes the report, you delivered, do you start thinking, why is he such a jerk? Does he always do this? His own reports are the second rate. And on and on.
3. The identity triggers
Identity triggers are unrelated to both the content of the feedback and the relationship with the feedback giver. Something about the feedback stirs up a deep pain from inside – mostly from our past. Someone may make a casual remark that you are clumsy. It may bring up painful childhood memories of how you always dropped things, and everyone ridiculed you and called you clumsy. We may feel overwhelmed or threatened – as this relates to our own identity.
Overcoming the triggers and accepting feedback as a gift
It is human to have these triggers for feedback. However, they keep us from engaging in a conversation and learning more about the feedback. They deprive us of the opportunity to learn and grow. We lose an opportunity to understand the other party and improve the interaction and the relationship.
Being aware of these feedback triggers is a good way to learn to accept feedback as a gift. Remember that there is no improvement without feedback. One of the best tools is to ask for feed-forward – which refers to asking for future suggestions.
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