‘Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots.’ – Frank A. Clark1
‘It’s only now, three years after I left the corporate world, I am beginning to discover who I really am’. Such reflection is common among my leadership clients.
Regular performance appraisals and provision of feedback have become an important part of any corporate culture and fundamental for encouraging employee performance, as well as promoting corporate values. As a result, employees often find it harder to trust their inner voice, or indeed to even recognise it, and become overly dependent on feedback from others and seeking external validation.
This article is not an attempt to question the value of the feedback culture, but an exploration of how such culture influences one’s effectiveness in the organisational context. How can we support leaders in getting the most out of the feedback that they receive, and ensure that the feedback does not undermine their self-trust or trigger unproductive self-doubt?
I will use a couple of case studies to illustrate the impact that feedback may have on leaders. These are not based on stories of any individual leaders who I have worked with, but are collective images which represent some common themes that I have worked with in my coaching practice over the past 18 years.
Sophia
When Sophia, a senior leader in a professional services firm, first appeared in my coaching room, I felt as if somebody had placed a heavy weight onto my shoulders. Her body looked stiff and tense as she lowered herself into the chair, and she visibly struggled to relax before she could start telling me her story.
Trying to keep the conversation as authentic and informal as possible, I lightly inquired into Sophia’s present work and home life. I couldn’t help noticing the intense look she kept giving me; I sensed that she was anxious about my judgement and was trying to second guess my reaction to her story as she was speaking.
She revealed that she had just received the results of her 360 feedback at work and that, despite all her best efforts, she felt misunderstood and unappreciated. Sophia was perceived by her stakeholders as skilled and hard-working, someone who was focused on the quality of the work that her team produced and who could achieve outstanding results on behalf of the organisation. On the other hand, many of her colleagues had pointed out that her interpersonal skills required attention. She was perceived as ‘hard around the edges’ in her communication style, defensive to criticism, and as rigidly pushing for other team members, both senior and junior, to meet her expectations.
Sophia shared that she had been hearing similar feedback for years and, despite doing her best to soften her communication style and make it ‘more acceptable’ to others, people’s perceptions of her did not seem to change. She felt out of her depth. Moreover, she felt that her team’s outstanding results, and her efforts to deliver them, at the cost of working very long hours, were vastly under-appreciated.
Sophia then told me that, in coaching, she was hoping for some strategies to ‘lower her own standards’ so she could become more relaxed about the quality of work that her team delivered and some ‘tips’ regarding her communication style. In a nutshell, it seemed to me as though Sophia was looking for tools to help her become someone she was not.
The sense of unease and stiffness that I saw in Sophia’s body language was hinting that, despite her request to explore some remedial strategies and find new ‘tools’ to enhance her influencing style, first work had to be done to help her get in touch with herself and find the language to express what she was experiencing in her body.
Renowned Gestalt therapist, Arnold Beisser, noted that: ‘Change occurs when a person becomes what s/he is, not when s/he tries to become what s/he is not’. 2
Through our joint exploration, Sophia discovered how challenging it was for her to get in touch with her own beliefs, and to recognise what was truly important for her. Sophia mainly described herself through the prism of the feedback that she had received from her colleagues over the years and her internal response to that feedback. It was clear how much she was hurt by that feedback, how unloved and depleted she felt. Unsurprisingly, her capacity to deliver the work was undermined until she was able to find ways of integrating her experience and so discover her internal resources to move forward.
Sebastian
During a three-way alignment call between myself, my client Sebastian and his manager to discuss Sebastian’s coaching needs, his manager described Sebastian as ‘great at everything he does’, but that he needed to find a leadership style that was authentic to him, in order to progress his career.
In his first coaching session following this call, Sebastian told me that he felt confused by his manager’s words. He explained that he had been attentive to the feedback he received from his team and had tried hard to implement the changes suggested to him. He told me that it was disheartening to hear that, as a result of this, he was now perceived as ‘less authentic’. Moreover, as he had been told that he often came across as ‘too serious’ and ‘disengaged’, thanks to the feedback, he now found himself overthinking his facial expressions and body language. Small wonder that he was finding it difficult to be ‘authentic’.
As we discovered through our coaching conversations, Sebastian was very focused on his career progression. Always immaculate in his physical presentation, he attached a lot of self-worth to being reliable, productive and achieving. It was clear that his team and those senior to him had great respect for him, but they often felt that he tried so hard it could be difficult to engage with him in an authentic, light-hearted fashion.
Through coaching we discovered that, as a high-achiever, Sebastian harboured a sophisticated form of self-doubt; pushing for achievement was necessary for him to feel worthy. His corporate environment continually reinforced his internal pattern with an ongoing push to think about what his next role might be and what he needed to improve to get there.
Sebastian told me that he often found himself dwelling on the conversations he had with his work colleagues. He was not particularly bothered by being disliked by them as a result of some of his ‘imperfect interactions’, but a perceived failure to meet his own high standards did not sit comfortably with him.
Through further exploratory work we discovered that one of his biggest fears was that deep down he might be lazy or complacent. Sebastian did his very best to keep his laziness in exile where it was guarded by his internal high achiever.
One of his core beliefs was that life is a fight. Sebastian believed that unless he worked hard and aimed for perfection, he was going to be at best, ordinary and at worst, fail.
From the stories that Sebastian told me it was clear that self-discipline, along with his ability to pull himself together and persevere, despite any difficulties that life threw at him, had served him well many times in both his personal and professional life.
Sebastian revealed that he often found himself buried in a heap of operational tasks and avoided addressing more strategic issues that would require him to engage his creative side. Sebastian was repeatedly praised by colleagues for his productivity and ability to resolve issues, a perception he was deservingly proud of. As a result, he spread himself too thin and left himself no room for the creative reflection that he needed to address strategic issues.
Despite always looking ‘together’, on several occasions Sebastian mentioned often feeling depleted, admitting that even on holidays, he struggled to relax and the best he could manage was ‘doing rest’, rather than actually resting. Even when he was on holiday, his harsh internal critic bullied him into being productive; it called him lazy and complacent when all he wanted was to get some rest and enjoy life.
Our coaching work was purposefully designed to help Sebastian get in touch with his own inner voice and self-doubt, explore the positive purpose of his internal perfectionist and high-achiever, and think about what self-trust might look like for him.
Feedback as a double-edged sword
In my executive coaching practice, my relationship with a leader often starts with joint exploration of their recent 360 or 180 feedback results. It is often a helpful place to start a coaching relationship as such conversations amplify patterns that are worth paying attention to in coaching and highlight any coaching needs as perceived by other stakeholders.
However, if taken at face value, there is a danger that the focus of coaching work can be shifted to how others want a leader to be, rather than exploring what might be strategic and most meaningful for the leaders themselves. The coaching work can then become rather superficial, addressing behaviours and looking for quick fixes, rather than exploring the underlying challenges and internal barriers that get in the way of changing behaviours.
I find that a challenging probing question often helps in getting immediate insight into a leader’s inner world:
How does it sit with you that you are perceived as:
- rough around the edges?
- too soft?
- being unclear about your expectations?
- not addressing poor performance?
- lacking focus on strategic matters?
- too tough with your expectations of others?
[or whatever else it might be?]
What could be the consequences of not doing anything about that?
Moreover, in my initial contracting with leaders, I explicitly emphasise that whatever behavioural strategies and changes of influencing style we might be exploring, these must be meaningful for them and in line with their personal values.
All that said, I have come across cases where a leader was so hurt by the feedback that they received from their colleagues, they felt so unloved, unworthy and misunderstood, a lot of work had to be done before we could engage in exploring any potential behavioural changes. In such cases coaching work primarily needs to focus on integrating their rather traumatic experiences, helping a leader to find the language to describe what they experienced emotionally and physically, witnessing and validating their experience and helping them to recover and restore confidence.
As a coach, I find that the regular feedback that people receive in the modern corporate world can often be a double-edged sword.
In my former role in learning and development with one of the largest professional services firms, when my function was to impress on managers and partners the importance of providing feedback to their teams, I would often refer to coach Myles Downey’s metaphor of a float tank, a sensory deprivation chamber – a giant bath filled with a high-density saline solution that is the same temperature as our bodies – to demonstrate the critical importance of feedback.3 After the initial positives of restoration and rejuvenation, which we can experience in such a voided space, there remains the possibility that if we spend too long in there, we start second-guessing what is happening outside and even begin to hallucinate. This is what happens in the absence of feedback.
Feedback can be a very helpful tool for raising self-awareness, promoting corporate values and encouraging certain behaviours, if leaders are equipped to have development conversations with their employees so that developmental feedback promotes learning and growth, rather than cultivates shame or resentment.
Much has been written on the art of giving feedback. For example, in his 2012 Forbes article, Eric Jackson, a tech and media investor, highlights some common mistakes that leaders need to avoid when giving feedback – ‘too vague’, ‘no preparation’, ‘no follow up’, etc.4
However, comparatively little has been written, and most importantly, very little is usually done, about helping people develop a healthy attitude to receiving feedback.
While nobody can make us feel bad about ourselves without our internal consent, such an attitude does not necessarily come naturally to many leaders. I observe that regular exposure to feedback often:
- interferes with self-trust and exacerbates self-doubt
- feeds dependence on external validation
- depletes personal emotional energy
- dampens authenticity in an attempt to fit in
- results in over-thinking
- contributes to circular imposter feelings
- dampens creativity for the fear of judgement
- feeds perfectionism and excessive focus on achievement
Work needs to be done across the board to ensure that feedback helps people to grow and develop, encourages meaningful positive action, in line with person’s values and aspirations, rather than simply promotes ‘fitting in’.
While it is important to be open to feedback from others, what we do with that feedback is the key to how much value we get from it. Taking on board what’s useful and, just as importantly, not dwelling on the rest, is essential if we are to avoid losing touch with our authentic selves and staying resourceful.
I have come across leaders for whom such a positive approach comes rather naturally, but I have also worked with many for whom coaching is a remedial action for rebuilding self-trust that has been undermined by so-called ‘constructive’ feedback.
This is particularly relevant for leaders whose internal anchor might be less solid, who might have historically not developed the ‘secure attachment style’, that Bowlby described as the capacity to connect well and securely in relationships with others while also having the capacity for autonomous action.5 Such leaders, especially if they are particularly invested in ‘doing well’, often seek external validation more often than others and find themselves easily hurt by any criticism.
Feedback can serve as a useful tool for helping people grow and develop, as well as promoting certain values and behaviours. However, organisations need to do better at supporting people in developing their self-trust as a crucial internal anchor, rather than feeding their self-doubt and dependency on external validation.
To the extent possible, coaching interventions need to support organisations in:
- Encouraging belonging, rather than fitting in. Taking feedback on board and taking developmental action is important, but staying true to yourself is essential for your own well-being and for building trust-based relationships where everyone feels valued and empowered. The main intent of feedback is to raise awareness.
- Promoting self-trust, rather than feeding unproductive self-doubt; emphasising and building on one’s gifts, rather than focusing future development efforts on managing their perceived shortcomings. Would a young David Beckham have been well advised to spend more time on practicing tackling… or just to devote all his efforts to being the best striker of a dead ball and crosser of a ball in the world?
- Appreciating that ‘feedback is a relational encounter’.6 Authentic, honest feedback can promote learning and growth, but it is well received only if a learner does not doubt the positive intentions of those giving feedback, if the relationship has a quality of mutual trust. Giving and receiving feedback is a delicate matter and needs to be approached accordingly.
- Rewarding courageous action. We have become so fearful of judgement and the dangers of being ‘cancelled’, a wider societal trend, leaders are often reluctant to take measured risks or even speak up when something does not feel right. As a result, despite all the best intentions, feedback systems often inhibit organisational creative potential for change and innovation.
To paraphrase Frank A. Clark’s quote with which I opened this article – feedback, like rain, should serve to nourish our growth without destroying our roots.1
References
1. Clark FA. Frank A. Clark quotes. [Online.] www.brainyquote.com/quotes/frank_a_
2. Beisser A. The paradoxical theory of change. In Fagan J, Shepherd IL., eds., Gestalt therapy now. New York: Harper & Row; 1970, pp77-80.
3. Downey M. Effective coaching: lessons from the coach’s coach. London: Texere; 2003.
4. Jackson E. Ten biggest mistakes bosses make in performance reviews. Forbes Magazine 2012 (9 January 2012).
5. Bowlby J. A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. New York: Basic Books; 1988.
6. De Haan E. The black and white magic of feedback. Coaching Today 2020, July, 22-24.
