How to Receive Feedback without Looking Arrogant or Insecure
We sat in horrified silence as the head of marketing went to town on a brand new whiteboard wall with a thick, smelly Sharpie–a permanent marker.
Everyone in the room knew what was happening. Any of us could have spoken up. When he picked up the marker, a couple of us almost did–but we stopped short of coming to Don’s rescue.
Most teams have that one person: the big personality with a lot of talent and an ego to match. Don was ours. Great hair, fancy suits, a Jaguar that was rumored to be a company car–Don was a marketing guy from central casting. While the rest of us were heads-down building and testing the product, Don was the face of our team to the outside world. I suspect the outside world was impressed. We were not.
Aside from promising things we couldn’t deliver and committing to dates we knew we wouldn’t hit, Don had two bad habits: he loved sketching his ideas on a whiteboard, and he would scream at anyone who told him anything other than what he wanted to hear. He also had a troubling weakness: he was pathologically impervious to feedback.
Suggest that Don might adapt his style or approach to a situation? He’d tell you about how successful he had been in his career. Push back on his empty promises about the product or the timeline? He’d question whether he had the right team. Make an observation he couldn’t refute? He’d change the subject to something that didn’t put him on the spot, or he’d turn the tables to give you some pointed feedback instead. Screaming and whiteboard drawing were a given.
We weren’t cowards, and we weren’t idiots. This was a team of solid professionals who could be very direct with each other. Being in a room with Don was different. He had the ear of the CEO, and he had a lot of power. We wanted to keep him happy, and none of us wanted to be the focus of his arbitrary wrath. Any of us could have saved Don from destroying the floor-to-ceiling whiteboard wall installed in our “war room” three days earlier. But no one did.
We never really gave him any feedback at all.
The Real Problem with Feedback
I worked with Don a long time ago. I thought at the time that he was probably an outlier, but I was wrong. I’ve met a lot of Dons over the years and in all kinds of companies.
One founder would turn on his team by saying that someone has “shown bad judgment” when what he meant was “doesn’t agree with me”. An engineer responded to feedback about his work style by writing a “how to work with me” guide. A CEO delighted in punishing her exec team with critical public feedback but recoiled in fear at the mere suggestion that there might be something she could do differently.
There are plenty of people who need feedback in order to become stronger and more effective in their work. There are tons of books, articles, blog posts, courses, and videos about the “art” of good feedback. There’s something approaching consensus that lack of useful feedback is a problem–even the people I’ve mentioned would agree that other people could use some direct feedback–and there are lots of possible solutions to the problem. Yet, most people withhold the vital feedback we need in order to grow, and most leaders bristle or panic when provided an opportunity to receive that feedback. This is where we find the real problem with feedback:
Giving feedback well is about technique. Receiving feedback well is about strength and self-awareness.
You can learn to give feedback well. Asking for permission first, offering observable specifics, suggesting concrete next steps, etc.–that’s a trainable skill. None of that really matters if what you offer falls on barren ground.
Receiving feedback well requires courage and curiosity at levels many leaders just haven’t yet reached–and often conspire to avoid. It threatens their self-image and their often-fragile egos.
But failing to confront constructive feedback threatens their companies.
Imposter Syndrome Drives Feedback Anxiety
We have a faulty story about what it means to be a leader.
Specifically, that story is that you have to be the smartest, most capable person in the room; that you have to have all the answers; that you cannot show weakness. The story is that you must be perfect.
The mistake is thinking that any of that is strength.
If you have to be the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room. If you have to have all the answers, it might be worth asking why you have a team at all. If you the people you hire don’t amaze you, you’re failing at one of the three responsibilities of a CEO. This is what weakness and insecurity look like in a growing company.
CEOs and founders know this. In their few moments of solitude–unless they are completely delusional–they know that they don’t have all the answers. They know they aren’t perfect. And they obsess about people finding that out. They worry about being found out for a fraud.
This is called “imposter syndrome”, and it is key to feedback anxiety.
If you believe people are buying your story, you’re likely to believe that feedback threatens that story. After all, feedback is never about how great you are–it’s always offered as something you could do differently or better. Even when offered as something constructive, it touches the “not good enough” nerve.
This is the first barrier to leveling up: preemptively resisting feedback.
One leader I worked with would answer the question, “Are you open to receiving feedback?” with a curt, “I don’t want to hear it.” That probably seems weak, but it’s one of the most honest things I heard from her. What strikes me as weak is fearing feedback but pretending to be open to it. That’s not imposter syndrome–that’s being an imposter.
EQ and Feedback Are Inextricably Linked
Most people struggle to be open to feedback, but one type of leader has severe challenges in receiving it: those with high IQ and low EQ.
For the uninitiated, EQ is emotional intelligence, which means
managing feelings so that they are expressed appropriately and effectively, enabling people to work together smoothly toward their common goals.
There are all kinds of reasons to care about EQ, including findings that people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time and that 90% of top performers have high emotional intelligence. There’s clearly more to success than just being smart.
The combination of high IQ and low EQ is particularly destructive in a growing company. High IQ can be a great asset for bringing cognitive horsepower and creative solutions to a team. Low EQ dilutes that contribution with stress, faulty assumptions, grudges, hidden triggers, and blaming others for your feelings. This is what blind spots look like. Frequently, this is also what early-stage founders and CEOs look like.
EQ is essential to receiving feedback, and feedback promotes greater EQ. Here’s why: useful feedback almost always focuses on something you don’t know, whether it’s a thing you do or the way people perceive that thing. Useful feedback lives in the upper-right quadrant of your Johari window:
Johari Window – Tool for assessing self-awareness.
Receiving and engaging with feedback moves information into your awareness. You learn something new, and you can act on that thing to promote a different–and possibly more effective–behavior. This is where knowledge becomes power.
Embracing those new insights isn’t easy, though. Information is in a blind spot for a reason. It could be that you haven’t come across that information yet, or it could be that you choose to remain ignorant of things you wish weren’t true. Either way, it’s tough to acknowledge that other people see things in you that are out of your awareness.
Having a high EQ helps you handle feedback. That means becoming aware of your triggers, owning your emotions, and getting a lot less defensive–exactly what you need to be able to accept feedback. That takes practice, but there is good news: EQ (unlike IQ) is malleable–you can work on improving it, but only if you are stronger than your imposter syndrome.
For many founders and CEOs, that is a steep climb–but also a path to power.
Receiving Feedback Well is a Source of Strength
With all the obstacles to receiving feedback–imposter syndrome, blind spots, low EQ–it’s pretty obvious why people stay stuck in unproductive patterns and commit unforced errors. It’s obvious why Don marked up the walls, and it’s also obvious why no one wanted to help him. Leaders shut down things they don’t want to hear, and the team around them avoids becoming collateral damage in the shutdown.
That doesn’t mean it has to be this way. There is a way for founders and CEOs to receive and act on feedback. There is a way to signal to teams that feedback is welcome, and that feedback will promote trust rather than retaliation. We just have to become more interested in the outcome than in the approach.
Feedback is the lifeblood of a great leader, a high-performing team, and a successful company. What prevents feedback from landing is insecurity and the fear that what you hear might mean you are an irretrievably broken shell of a human being who has had everyone fooled but actually has no business running a company. Or something like that.
Bottom line: the quality of the feedback isn’t the problem. The insecurity is.
You can’t rely on others to make feedback safe and non-threatening for you. That’s not their job, and it just makes you seem weak. Feedback should make you stronger. There’s no easy way to get over your anxiety about the opportunity for feedback, but there’s a really good way to receive feedback:
Treat feedback as perception rather than truth.
Acknowledge that the person’s perception is real.
Ask how you can shift the perception.
This works for a few reasons. First, it depersonalizes what you’re hearing long enough for you to really hear it. The feedback isn’t an expert’s diagnosis on your character or your behavior. It’s just another person’s experience of your behavior, which you can choose to change. That puts the power in your hands.
Second, your willingness to really listen to someone else puts them at ease and makes you appear strong. Only insecure people constantly push back on feedback. Someone who is strong enough to hear and consider feedback will appear strong, open, and curious.
Third, you are acknowledging and validating the other person’s opinion–without judging it–and seeking their suggestions about what you could do if you decided to act on their feedback. This encourages people to give you information about your performance while setting the expectation that they should have some ideas about what could be different. It strengthens the team, and it makes you stronger.
How to Receive Feedback without Insecurity
Here’s what this looks like in practice:
The Insecure Way
team member: “People think you talk too much about yourself during pitches.”
you: “That’s stupid. Everyone knows that I only care about the company and its customers. You guys just don’t back me up. I’m the only one here who can represent this company, and you’re all jealous. Idiot.”
The Confident Way
team member: “People think you talk too much about yourself during pitches.”
you: “It bothers me to hear that. I don’t think I talk about myself much at all during pitches–even on the team slide–but clearly there is a perception that I am focusing too much on myself. What can I do to shift that perception?”
At this point the person giving the feedback will go into problem-solving mode while you dispassionately reflect on what you have heard. You get specifics about why someone might think what they do, and you get options about how you can address the feedback–if you choose to do so.
You get the information you need, the other person feels heard and included, and you get to decide what to feel and do in your own time. It’s a great way to level up and be seen to be leveling up, if you care about that sort of thing. It’s a power move.
Getting Better at Feedback isn’t Optional
Don probably thought he had people’s respect. He didn’t.
People notice when you can’t handle feedback or criticism. If you’re a founder or CEO, they watch you closely. They make meaning of what you say and do. They seek your favor and avoid your anger. They also emulate what you do.
You set the expectation for what happens in your company. Culture is what the CEO tolerates. When you shut down anyone who suggests you could do something better, you show them that you don’t need anyone’s help–and that they shouldn’t either. When you turn feedback around on someone or change the subject, you show them that accountability doesn’t matter and that there’s always somewhere else to place blame. Your actions set the example for how your people will behave with you–and when you’re not around.
Showing that you know how to receive feedback signals that you are open to learning and growth. Treating their perspective as valid shows respect. Engaging them in thinking through how to handle the feedback builds trust. That’s what makes a high-performing team.
If you are the leader, this isn’t a “nice to have”–this is the job.
UPDATE: I wrote this a few hours before learning of Jack Welch passing. I omitted a quote from him in the editing that seems relevant and timely:
“No doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader. You just can’t ignore it.” –Jack Welch
Solid direction from a titan.
