When Feedback Feels Personal: Staying Curious Long Enough to Learn

Feedback is relatively easy to receive when we agree with it. The harder—and often more useful—work begins when someone offers an observation that feels inaccurate, unfair, or inconsistent with how we understand ourselves.

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Our natural response in those moments is often to evaluate the feedback before we have really considered it. We explain the context, identify what the other person may not understand, or begin building the case for why their assessment isn’t quite right. Sometimes, of course, it isn’t. Feedback is inherently subjective, and not every observation deserves the same weight.

But feedback does not have to be entirely accurate to contain useful information.

I often encourage leaders to separate intent from impact when they are trying to make sense of difficult feedback. We tend to evaluate our own behavior with the benefit of knowing our intentions, while everyone around us experiences that behavior primarily through its impact. A leader may know that she is thoughtful and collaborative, for example, while others experience her reluctance to speak early in a meeting as a lack of confidence. Another may believe he is being direct and decisive while his team experiences the same behavior as dismissive.

The question, then, is not simply, “Is this feedback true?” A more productive question is, “What might someone be experiencing that caused them to reach this conclusion?”

That subtle shift matters because it replaces defensiveness with curiosity without requiring us to accept every piece of feedback as fact. Ask for examples. Look for patterns rather than isolated comments. Consider whether the perception changes depending on the audience or environment. Most importantly, resist the urge to explain your intention before you fully understand the impact.

This is particularly important as leaders become more senior. Leadership is not only about what we intend to communicate; it is also about our ability to recognize how our behavior is being interpreted by the people around us. Perception should not dictate every decision, but neither can it simply be dismissed because it does not match our own assessment.

The goal of feedback is not to construct a perfectly accurate description of who you are. It is to give you information about how your leadership is being experienced.

You can disagree with some of that information and still learn from it. In fact, sometimes the feedback we are most inclined to reject is precisely the feedback worth examining a little longer.

The Value of Intention Setting

What’s the value of intention setting? Well, for starters let’s define it. It is a process used to reach a specific goal or outcome. The aim is to increase the likelihood of achieving said intention by putting your thoughts and energy toward the desired outcome. 

How does it work? There are actually a number of ways you can approach intention setting. You can leverage meditation, visualization, or even personal affirmations. The key, however, is identifying a specific goal and then focusing your thoughts accordingly. 

My coachees are encouraged to set intentions when I commence working with them. We want everything we work on together to be aligned with an overarching theme: an intention. Do you want to earn 20% more this year? Do you want to improve your executive presence? Are you ready for that next step in your career? 

While goals may be finite, intentions are holistic. It lives and breathes with you – and you let it be the guide in your decision-making. Intention setting can help you better understand your own goals and priorities. And once you visualize and verbalize them, you’re more motivated to achieve those goals.

There are even physiological benefits to intention setting: Having clear intention(s) can decrease stress and anxiety – a sought-after goal in this day and age. Further, intention setting can revitalize your motivation, fuel your purpose, and boost your confidence. Research shows that human intention can have a profound impact on physical reality, so it really is worth the hype. 

*To intention(ing)*

Are you Transacting as a Leader?

Clients are often faced with challenging circumstances at work, and each week we use  these obstacles as learning opportunities to ensure appropriate management. Sometimes in the minutiae of every day life, it’s difficult to allow time for future planning. This is, in part, a job of mine: amidst weekly learnings about effective management and resolving conflict, intention setting is important. 

What’s interesting about the phenomenon of learning is you truly do not know what you do not know. When considering what type of leader you want to be, you might think of descriptors such as charismatic, motivational, or servanthood. But there are actually a number of formalized leadership styles. What’s the benefit of being aware of these differing styles? It allows you to reflect on what you want to be (the intention-setting part). Similar to behavior, you can change your leadership style, but not without the awareness of what direction you want to head in.

Knowing your style helps direct your decision-making, and as a leader, that is paramount. There are numerous styles of leadership that aren’t inherently good or bad—they’re just different. They all have their benefits and drawbacks, as well as their appropriate uses in certain scenarios.

Today, I am sharing information about Transactional Leadership. It is not uncommon for me to see this type of leadership, especially for high performers (who often become leaders of teams due to their impressive track record). 

Simply put, transactional leaders give X and expect Y in return. 

Transactional leaders give instructions to their team members and then use different rewards and penalties to either recognize or minimize what they do in response.

Think of a leader offering praise to applaud a job well done, or mandating that a group member handles a despised department-wide task because they missed a deadline. Rewards and punishment are the way a transactional leader thinks. 

This is a “telling” style, but is often correlated to high-result work environments. So, a natural pro is that confusion is eliminated. Tasks and expectations are clearly mapped out by the leader. An undeniable con is that with such rigidity, creativity and innovation can be stifled and trust decreases. 

Food for thought: Do you transact as a leader? Where might you be falling short?

Motivate Your Team Members (a "How To")

When you think of your team members, do you think of them as eager to work more hours and initiate more responsibilities? Across the board, it seems to be a fair shake out: Some individuals are intrinsically motivated, and others pose a distinct challenge to their manager, resisting to get the bare minimum accomplished. The good news? There are solutions to help motivate your team members.

For many business owners and team leads alike, motivation is believed to stem from “what you get.” The extrinsic incentives — a term linked to Frederick Herzberg’s research on motivation. But here’s the thing about the research, it tells us that motivation does not come from those external incentives such as office perks. It’s not the company game room, the nap pods, the work-funded drinking extravaganzas, or even the promotions (which are all starting to return in the normal course). Instead, these are short-term fixes and there’s an expiration date associated with each. The dangling carrot of promotion is enough to keep someone motivated to reach that achievement, and yet it’s shown that as soon as the promotion is achieved, the motivation doesn’t last. Herzberg very pointedly directs organizations that they have limited power in motivating employees. (Um, yikes?)

Not to worry, the point in exposing the minimal purpose of extrinsic motivation is to demonstrate the necessity of the intrinsic rewards that unlock the vault of motivation (what makes our motor tick). It’s about allowing each person to turn their own keys in the ignition, not constantly trying to start it for them.

Let’s break it down so you can take the most useful tidbits along for the workday (otherwise, read Herzberg’s One More Time for full research).

Create a more enriching environment (leading to motivated employees) by employing the following:

• Accountability

  • Remove your need to control and make individuals accountable for their work. Not sure if you are controlling (e.g., a micromanager)? Ask for feedback.

• Responsibility

  • Rather than giving individuals responsibilities for one part of a task, give them ownership of the entire work stream or unit. Don’t fix it for them, and surely do not take credit for a team member’s work.

• Information flow

  • We like to filter information: Remove this extra step and include your team members in discussions. When trust increases, unhelpful water cooler discourse decreases.

• Challenge

  • Allow (and encourage) your team to take on new projects and responsibilities they haven’t addressed before.

• SME

  • Subject matter experts are essential in teams. Not only does this stem from added responsibility and accountability, but it also stems from the trust that this person owns the knowledge for a certain topic. Assigning individuals specializations is useful for their careers and for the teams of which they’re a part.

In short, this is a management worldview for motivation that says, “Empower, don’t control – Educate, don’t tell.”

Not only is this comprehensive, but it’s also reasonable. Of the listed suggestions, what can you immediately change for your team?