In this video, we're going to talk about how you as a leader should respond to
negative feedback when you hear it. So let's get into the details.
Hello again friends. Alex Lyon here.
This channel, Communication Coach, is all about helping
rising leaders increase your own personal skills so that you can bring
out the best and all the people that you lead. I believe that good communication
and leadership change lives. Today's topic is how to handle and respond to
negative feedback. This comes with the job description. The day you become a
leader is the same day you start hearing negative feedback. so how do you respond
to this when you get it. We're going to talk about four tips in terms of how to
respond as well as a bonus tip at the end of the video for how you should be
collecting negative feedback or feedback in general in the first place.
Tip number one on how to respond. Ss soon as possible, you want to
metaphorically come alongside the person that is giving you feedback. In other
words, we tend to take feedback personally and we tend to face each
other like boxers, right? We face off with them, adversarial positioning in our
nonverbals and in our words. But instead, what you want to do is think about
collaborating with that person. show themthat you were right alongside them
looking at this problem and trying to understand it together. So that's the
first step. If you get defensive, it's going to shut the conversation down and
it's going to get off the rails. The second thing you want to do is help the
person generate possible solutions with you. Don't just let them give you the
problem and leave. Coach them through a process and ask them, so do you have any
possible solutions for the problem that we're talking about? If they don't have
any possible solutions, then walk them through a process? What would an ideal
solution look like? Now, when you start doing this, you'll find that many people
don't just have a problem in mind. They have a solution that they've come with
too. And they should be doing, this by the way. We always want to give problems but
also solutions to those problems. You don't want to just dump things on people.
And by walking them through this process, you're helping to mentor them
in that way. Once that conversation is over and you thank them and you've
thought about the problems and the solutions, now you need to move forward
and talk to other people. Do your homework, really. You want to ask a whole
bunch of other people, look at whatever data you need to understand, to be fully
informed on the nature of this problem. Sometimes you may find out that this is
a huge issue and everybody knows about and everybody cares about it.
I had one situation recently, however, where I heard a particular piece of
negative feedback someone came to me and said you know really everybody thinks
this. And then when I started asking other people, almost nobody thought that.
It was really just this one person's opinion and it turned out that the
person was trying to get what they wanted for themselves but they really
didn't care about the rest of the group. So that's a great example of a time
where I did my homework and I found out that this really wasn't an issue at all.
So make sure you do your due diligence and look into the problem further after
that initial conversation. And the fourth tip is trying to solve about 1/3 of the
problems that people bring you. do your best.
Aim for about a third. And my experience leaders can generally handle responding
and fixing about 1/3 of the issues that come to them. Another third of the issues
are things that are the way they are for a reason. Maybe it's not ideal but
usually through a conversation the person bringing you the feedback will at
least understand that's the way things are right now and that this is
the best we can do right now. And then in about 1/3 of the cases, what you'll find
is that these problems are basically set in cement. the people above you have
already said no. You know, there's no moving on this issue. so I say aim for a
third because I think it's a manageable number but it's also, through talking to
people in workshops about what people would expect a good leader to be able to
do, if you can solve a lot of third of the problems that people bring you, they know
that you're listening they know that you care and that you're doing your best to
take action. It'll keep your credibility high. If you don't solve any of the
problems that come to you, then you're going to lose a lot of credibility and
certainly nobody expects you to solve every single problem that they bring you.
But, about a third of the time will set the right tone and keep the ball moving
forward. so now as a bonus tip I would like to briefly
to you about the best way to gather upward feedback. And the tip is this. You as
the leader have the communication responsibility to develop upward
channels for feedback. Organizations are built for top-down communication. they
are not naturally built for upward communication and you as the leader have
to do things like surveys focus groups intense one-on-ones where you do a lot of
listening for feedback. And then you gather feedback in a systematic way to
make good decisions. And when you do this, a lot of the gossip will stop and
negativity will stop. A lot of the squeaky wheels, who just won't get their
way, will stop. And you're not going to deal with this weird perception issue
like, Oh nobody here is listening. If you can do those things then you'll be
headed in the right direction. In fact, I have a whole other video that I will
link to about gathering upward feedback in the description below the video. again
I'll try to put a card up here and you can get to it through the youtube
homepage as well on how to develop upward channels of communication. So
question of the day. What are your tips for handling negative feedback? I would
love to hear your comments in that section below the video. The most
interesting comments and tips come from you as a viewer. I look forward to
reading those. Thanks. God bless and I will see you next time.
Hello again. Before we go, I'd like to tell you about a free mini course I
created for you. It has five killer lessons in professional communication skills:
concise, clear, listening skills, building positive relationships, and
problem-solving. This is a foundational skill set that I believe every
professionals should develop. I'll put a link to that free course in the
description below the video as well as maybe a pop out that comes out here and
the YouTube landing page you can find it there. So thanks. God bless. Take care.