How to Receive Feedback if You Want to Be Promoted

How to Receive Feedback is an important skill that is not talked about nearly as much as how to give feedback.  Below, we talk about:

• Why you would bother to care about How to Receive Feedback
• How you go about gathering feedback.
• How To Receive Feedback if you want to get fired.
• How to Receive Feedback if you want to get promoted.

Why you should care about How to Receive Feedback

How to Receive Feedback is a critical career skill.

• By learning How to Receive Feedback, you will have discovered one of the most powerful ways to develop and change your behavior.
• Your powers of self-perception only go so far. People around you notice things, both good and bad.  Remember — “What you think about your leadership is not as important as what others think about your leadership.”
• The critical factor in making the feedback effective for your personal development is how you deal with and respond to the information you receive.

How to Get Feedback

The first necessary step in learning How to Receive Feedback, is to get feedback.  Here are some ideas:

• Ask – there is nothing wrong with asking people specific questions about your leadership or your performance.
• 360 Feedback – some organizations have infrastructure in place for formal feedback such as a 360 assessment.  In the absence of such instruments, you can still solicit feedback in a more formal way.
• Skip Level Meetings – The skip level meeting is an excellent way to solicit feedback.  There is some risk in having your boss interview your direct reports, but the feedback can be very valuable.
• Listen For It – Every day, people will offer clues to you about your leadership and your performance.  If you can pay attention to these clues, it can be very helpful.

How to Receive Feedback if You Want to Get Fired:

• Get emotional – if you become angry or emotional when receiving feedback, it sends a very clear signal about your maturity to others.
• Be defensive – if you consistently rationalize the feedback, and fail to take responsibility, you will likely get fired.
• Deny — if you fail to consider others’ points of view about your performance, it will compromise your career.
• Explain and Make Excuses – there are lots of ways to explain away poor performance.
• Sulk – if you fail to see feedback as a gift to improve, but rather feel injured as a result of having someone telling you something you didn’t want to hear, you are risking your employment.

How to Receive Feedback if you want to get promoted:

• Listen — Attempt to listen without judging what the person is saying. Listen without expressing your opinion or responding.
• Clarify — Ask probing questions to make sure you understand what is being said. Ask questions to clarify. Ask for examples and stories that illustrate the feedback.
• Thank — Thank them for the feedback even when you don’t agree with all of it, there will be some good ideas – accept them. This shows respect for the other person’s perspective.
• Think — Consider and reflect upon others perceptions of your leadership behavior. Work on developing your understanding of how others perceive your behavior and its impact – the intended and the unintended consequences on that person, other employees, and the work environment.
• Change — Work to improve.  Devote your energy to finding improvement rather than disputing observations. People can and do change. Choose one or two behaviors to focus on in developing your action plan. Identify concrete, observable actions to do differently.  Get help. Monitor how well you are doing by keeping track of what you committed to change.
• Follow Up — This step is the most critical one. Follow-up demonstrates that you are truly committed to changing your behavior. “You know that I am working on being a better listener. How am I doing? If you had any suggestions for me, what would they be?”

Three Things to Remember about How to Receive Feedback:

1. You do want to encourage feedback – it is a key career and survival tool
2. You can decide what to do with the feedback.
3. Don’t forget to follow up.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about How to Receive Feedback (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

Looking for the Full-Length Podcast/Video? …

Get Instant Access to 200+ Cheat Sheets, Videos, and Other Immediately Usable Tools for Busy Managers – Try Out a Wily Manager Membership Today!