“The Leadership Perspective” is a series of articles designed to assist millennials and emerging leaders with navigating difficult situations. Each week, successful business leaders provide targeted, actionable advice to enhance your perspective and improve your leadership skills.
This is part two of a two-week series on feedback. Today’s article features Chris Cigna, Vice President Sales at Group360.
In my previous article, I discussed how delivering constructive feedback can be a defining marker of leadership ability. It improves individual performance, advances organizational success, and separates top performers from the rest.
It is important to recognize that delivering effective feedback is a skill that is learned and developed over time. Many organizations address the gaps in delivering feedback by implementing formal guidelines and training programs. However, developing these skills also relies on the deliverer’s dedication to self-improvement and real-world application. The more they experiment in new environments, the greater opportunity they will have to improve and refine their ability to effectively deliver feedback.
Equally as important is to realize that a manager’s ability to improve their own skills can only go so far. While your manager delivers the feedback from the driver’s seat, it remains up to you to navigate the next move(s). In this way, feedback is a two-way street. As the recipient of feedback, you are in charge of interpreting what you hear and ultimately deciding whether or not to change your thoughts and actions. In other words, you control whether the provided feedback fuels or muffles your success.
As with delivering effective feedback, the skills necessary to receiving feedback are also learned. Here are four ways in which you can improve your ability to receive feedback:
1. Recognize Your Emotions
Have you ever been in a situation where a comment or suggestion from your manager has jump-started your emotions? For example, they may say, “that was an interesting sales pitch.” In response, you may have felt anxious, irritated, or threatened. Suddenly, a seemingly harmless comment piles up into an often-uncontrollable collision of emotions.
Self-awareness is paramount in an environment where feedback is exchanged. In fact, successful improvement of your ability to receive feedback begins with managing your own emotions. According to a 2014 Harvard Business Review article, there are only three ways in which feedback can trigger emotion:
Truth Triggers: When sparked by the content of the feedback, “assessments or advice [may] seem off base, unhelpful, or simply untrue, you feel indignant, wronged and exasperated.”
Relationship Triggers: When sparked by the individual delivering the feedback, “exchanges are often colored by what you believe about the giver and how you feel about your previous interactions. So you might reject coaching that you would accept on its merits if it came from someone else.”
Identity Triggers: When sparked by the relationship with yourself, “whether the feedback is right or wrong, wise or witless, it can be devastating if it causes your sense of who you are to come undone. In such moments, you’ll struggle with feeling overwhelmed, defensive, or off-balance.”
By recognizing the trigger(s), you can more effectively understand your emotional response(s) and course-correct to use the feedback for your own benefit.
2. Know Your Style
Chris shares his personal feedback style by saying, “I always take some time to think about the feedback provided and never take things personally. Even if someone’s approach to providing feedback isn’t exactly how you prefer it to be, there is still a message for consideration.”
Knowing the way in which you receive and process feedback is an integral component of the learning process. For example, upon receiving feedback, do you release a confusing mixture of emotion with tears or do you mask your anger with a smile? Perhaps you become defensive or argumentative. Is your style to process the feedback over time or do you make an immediate decision? Maybe you tend to agree with the feedback, but don’t know how to make improvements.
Regardless of your unique style, Chris presents an important and defining part of the process: separate yourself as a person from yourself as a professional. When you stop viewing feedback as a personal attack and start seeing it as a professional gain, you can rev-up its full value and stride towards improvement.
3. Unpack the Load
It’s important to take the time to assess the constructive feedback you receive before you make the decision whether to use it or not. As a starting point, write down what you hear, step away from it, and revisit it 24-hours later. This will allow you to overtake momentary emotion(s) so that you can dispassionately parse the feedback. Finally, seek other viewpoints, including that of the person delivering the feedback. As Chris shares, “ask the person who provided the feedback, or even someone else you trust will provide candid feedback, to spend some time with you and share further thoughts. This is especially important if you are unsure of what someone is trying to tell you.”
Chris makes another great point. Feedback can often lack specificity and clarity, leaving room for assumptions and mixed interpretations, which are potential causes for combustion. In order to transition the feedback into actionable advice, you will need to properly decipher the giver’s intent and manage it yourself. Chris suggests, “circle back with the person or people who provided the feedback in more of a casual environment (e.g., over coffee outside of the office) and ask questions.” Initiate a conversation with the goal of understanding what prompted the feedback, discovering the steps you can take to improve future performance, and clarifying why it matters. By unpacking all available aspects of the feedback, you not only display your commitment to improvement, but also collect all the parts necessary for making an informed decision.
4. Drive Before You Buy
Feedback doesn’t have to wait for your next 1:1 meeting. When you are the one asking for it, you can better maintain your emotions, drive the conversation, and display your willingness to improve. In this situation, it’s important to frame your request so that you can extract the most value. Be direct and specific by searching for one or two suggestions in a particular area instead of merely asking, “can you provide me with some feedback?”
Once you have unpacked the feedback you receive and seek, you still may not know if it’s entirely right for you. Take it for a test drive so that you can find out how the feedback fits and decide to accept it or not. By being open to experimenting with new ideas, methods, and advice, you are exposing yourself to opportunities that you may not have considered. This can ultimately build a well-rounded understanding of your abilities and shorten your pathway towards improvement.
In conclusion, it is important to recognize that you are the most important component of your professional development. When you commit to learning from the feedback you receive, you can control your own destination.
