Leadership Minute: People Respond To Feedback In Three Ways. Only One Is Effective

Are the people you lead Refusers, Repeaters, or Refiners? The answer will dictate the course of your team

You cannot become a better leader without feedback.

Even the most self-aware of us have blind spots, and feedback shines a light on those areas of weakness. This is why I’ve written multiple articles on feedback, including a previous Leadership Minute that shared an exercise to help teams practice difficult feedback conversations.

But there are two sides to every feedback discussion, and learning how to receive and apply feedback is a separate and equally vital skill.

As a leader, you evaluate each member of your team’s ability to take feedback. It doesn’t matter how talented, collaborative or hardworking a person is—if they don’t listen to and learn from feedback, there’s an invisible ceiling on their growth potential. While you don’t need to cut someone loose if they can’t take feedback, you shouldn’t expect them to grow either.

Generally speaking, there are three ways that people respond to feedback in the workplace.