Cory Berg

Unlocking Leadership · Module 2

Lesson 6: Giving and Receiving Feedback

Contents

Video

Giving and Receiving Feedback

Feedback is one of the highest-leverage tools a leader has. Delivered well, it accelerates development, builds trust, and helps teams course-correct before small problems become big ones. Avoided or delivered poorly, it creates stagnation, confusion, and resentment.

Most leaders underperform in both directions: they give feedback too infrequently or too harshly, and they are too defensive or too passive when receiving it.

Giving Feedback

The goal of feedback is not to make someone feel good or bad. It is to help them see something clearly so they can act on it. That reframe changes how you approach the conversation.

  • Be timely. Feedback loses power with distance. Give it as close to the behavior or event as possible. Waiting until a quarterly review to surface something that happened in month one serves no one.
  • Frame it as an observation. Describe what you saw or heard, not what you concluded about the person's character or intentions. "In that meeting, I noticed you cut off two people before they finished speaking" is more useful than "you're not a good listener."
  • Be specific. Vague feedback ("you need to communicate better") gives the person nothing to act on. Specific feedback ("your project update emails don't include the blockers - can you add that going forward?") does.
  • Avoid judgment of the person. Feedback is about behavior and impact, not about who someone is. Keeping that distinction clear - in your thinking and in your language - is what separates useful feedback from attacks that people get defensive about.

Receiving Feedback

The way you respond to feedback signals more about your leadership character than almost anything else. Leaders who get defensive, dismiss feedback, or go silent create an environment where people stop giving it. That is an expensive loss.

  • Ask for it. Do not wait for feedback to come to you. Actively solicit it from your team, your peers, and your manager. "What's one thing I could do better in how I'm running these meetings?" is a question most leaders never ask.
  • Say "thank you." Before you do anything else. Even if the feedback stings, even if you disagree with it, the person took a risk to give it to you. Acknowledge that by thanking them. This is important.
  • Ask clarifying questions. Make sure you understand what is being said before you react to it. "Can you give me an example?" or "Help me understand what you mean by that" buys you time and often reveals something useful.
  • Act on it. This is the part most leaders skip. Feedback that does not change anything destroys trust faster than if you had never asked. When you act on feedback, say so - "I've been thinking about what you said last week and I changed how I'm doing X." That closes the loop and shows the person that their input actually mattered.

Reading the Signals of Feedback

Listen up, this one is important.Feedback does not always come in a well-wrapped package with a "Feedback" sign on it. Sometimes it comes as a frustrated sigh from your boss, a bunch of missed one-on-ones, or meetings that you are no longer invited to. At any give point, you are surrounded by at least 5 sources of feedback:

  • Your boss
  • Your peers
  • Your team/direct reports
  • Your customers
  • Your friends/family
Learning to read signals, listen to what they tell you, and adapt/respond at the proper level is a higher-level skill that separates great leaders from good ones.

Feedback versus Affirmation

Feedback is not affirmation. Constantly asking "how am I doing?" is not the same as soliciting feedback. The need for affirmation - especially when you are new or inexperienced - is a natural thing, but constantly asking for it is a career limiter, and will eventually be perceived as needy and annoying. At high levels of leadership, you are expected to demonstrate resilience and pick up on feedback signals enough to navigate your own ecosystem. So, while asking for feedback is a sign of growth, experienced people are usually perceptive enough to pick up on feedback signals without always needing to ask. I suggest you watch how others do it, and emulate their approach.

NVC: A Framework for Hard Conversations

When giving feedback in particularly sensitive situations, the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) framework can be useful. Developed by Marshall Rosenberg, NVC structures difficult conversations around four elements: Observations (what happened, without judgment), Feelings (how it affected you), Needs (what you need that was not met), and Requests (a specific, actionable ask).

This framework keeps conversations factual and forward-looking - which is where they need to stay if they are going to produce anything useful.