Your feedback was rejected. Now what?
Giving feedback is part of being a leader, but sometimes recipients don’t recognize feedback as the gift it is intended to be. What can you do to help the recipient move past resistance and into understanding?
Gut check
Before responding to the individual, take a moment to consider your motivations in giving the feedback. Do you really want what’s best for the recipient, or do you have a bone to pick? If your goal is to be helpful, keep going! If you’re motivated by your own self-interest, move on.
Redirect
When you come up against a wall of resistance, don’t keep hammering your point home. Instead, ask these questions and listen to their answers.
- What’s going on for you right now?
- Go through the senses. What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What are you hearing? What are you seeing? Hitting their preferred way of thinking may help them open up.
- Imagine, if this feedback was true, what would you say next?
- Imagine, if this feedback was true, what would you ask?
- Explore intent vs. impact. What did you intend? What is the impact?
- When someone is resistant, what do they do?
- What’s at stake for you right now?
From: The Leadership Freak
“Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots.” – Frank A Clark