In a recent one-to-one session with a senior leader, we were discussing some pretty tough feedback.

Like many top leaders, my client had requested this feedback: from her team; and her team’s team. But even so: having put just so much heart and soul into her leadership, to get the harsh comments she did was hard to take. Never mind that she asked for it. And never mind that none of it was not about her, personally.

Working with tough feedback is a common conversation for me with my clients. Because in such a moment, we all need support NOT to get to work embellishing the feedback with our own stories of what that means, what it says about us as a person, how doing this it too painful – and vowing never to ask again.

But we don’t want to do that. To go through such an exercise is a powerfully progressive growth activity for any leader. And actually, not only do we want to continue doing it; we want to be willing to stretch the challenge even further. To ask even more to-the-point questions. To delve into areas we would otherwise prefer to leave in a box.

I’m reminded of a great leadership discipline I heard from Beth Comstock (Former GE Vice Chair) on The Learning Leader Show podcast with Ryan Hawk, Episode #292 “You Don’t Need Permission. In summary, she put this question to her team:

“Tell me something I don’t want to hear.”

And of course, the initial responses from the team are full of resistance and reluctance. Then, after some gentle prodding: a few tame suggestions. But when Ms. Comstock really pushed them to offer-up challenge, she got the gold dust – as far as personal learning and leadership development goes.

So as a leader, I don’t want to stop asking for feedback. I want to get better at handling it – and then asking for more.

Here are 6 secrets to help you work with the tough feedback – and move from reaction to creation.

1. Learn to interrupt negative thought cycles

Through practice, build your self-awareness to spot the negative thought cycles that we can descend into. In those moments of receiving feedback, ask yourself: How am I doing my thinking? How pleased am I with my thinking processes? How useful (vs. dysfunctional) are my thinking processes to me and my success? On noticing the negative thought cycles, have a strategy to “break state”. Any one or all of the following ideas might help with that …

2. Pre-prepare useful thinking

Ahead of time, away from the emotional charge of receiving the feedback, pre-prepare some useful thoughts and beliefs that you can call upon in the tough feedback moments. Examples of useful thoughts might include: “However much we do, we’re not going to please everyone.” or “Not pleasing absolutely everyone is ok.” or “Challenging feedback has the most learning potential for me. It’s a gift.” Adopt these beliefs to shift your perspective and have them be fuel for your next steps.

3. Identify and stay with the root emotion

On receiving difficult feedback, a common reaction (rather than response) is to embellish. To add a story and to make it part of our identity. Instead: identify, in a word, the root emotion. Hurt. Anger. Sadness. Disappointment. And then stay with that. It sounds counter-intuitive to be with a negative emotion, but labelling it will help. And importantly, it keeps us from the additional storytelling which is the really damaging thought pattern.

4. Let them have their emotion

People feel how people feel. And a key element of our own acceptance and ability to move on is in letting people have their emotions. It’s not for us to say what they should or should not feel about something. And when we do start thinking such things, we find our own functional capacities diminished; and access to our most resourceful states limited. So, start with the belief: people may have their emotions, whatever they may be.

5. Check your levels of responsibility

A commonly unhelpful theme I notice among those I work with is the unconscious taking-on of too much responsibility for someone else’s status and success. What’s “too much” responsibility? That’s for you to decide for yourself and your specific circumstance. But do conduct that self-check – and remind yourself that, in the end, we can only take responsibility for ourselves.

6. Notice if you’re feeling or doing

A key difference between reaction vs. creation is feeling vs. doing. On receiving the feedback, notice now if your focus and attention is going into the feeling – or the doing. When it’s more about the feeling, my next steps are dictated by mood and are more likely to be dysfunctional; as opposed to when it’s more about the doing, when my next steps are functional and forward-looking. Check how much action you’re in.

Thanks for reading!

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