The Art of Receiving and Giving Feedback for Approachability & Coachability

What if the key to transforming your leadership skills lies in understanding the delicate balance between intent and perception? Join us as we unpack the often overlooked complexities of giving and receiving feedback, revealing why so many leaders find it daunting and how a shift in focus can pave the way for significant personal and professional growth. We promise you'll walk away with actionable insights into how to become more approachable and coachable, ultimately fostering a more positive and productive environment.

Through compelling real-life examples, including a riveting story about coaching a boys' volleyball team, we shine a light on the uncomfortable yet crucial process of self-reflection and adjustment. We also discuss eye-opening statistics on workplace engagement and self-awareness, emphasizing the challenges leaders face when their feedback is consistently met with resistance. Whether you're a leader tasked with giving feedback or someone striving to grow from it, this episode is teeming with valuable lessons and transformative advice.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

I think the greatest thing that we need to understand when we get feedback or we get mentoring or coaching or insight to not only our strengths but certainly our areas where we can improve is we will always, mentally between our ears, have the battle of intent versus perception. What we tend to focus on is someone else's intent he attacked me, he didn't have his facts straight. Someone else's intent he attacked me, he didn't have his facts straight. That way, we never get to this perception where we have to look in the mirror and say how am I being perceived by other people? That's very uncomfortable for some people. So, thinking about that, think about a situation recently where you know what, if I put that into the context of perception, I would be able to look at things I need to navigate, adjust, tweak what have you to become more approachable and coachable. I'm going to share this with you and I've shared this in a lot of our episodes. Do you know what? Leaders will never tell you? That they hate giving feedback. Most leaders will not say, oh, I love giving feedback. Many leaders will say I have to give feedback, it's part of my job, I'm going to do it. But when they get people who rebuttal and 85% of people significantly lack self-awareness. 71% of people, according to Gallup, are where Neutral or actively disengaged in the workplace. Only 29% are engaged. That is a daunting statistic. 42% of people are currently looking for jobs, according to McKinsey, in Q4 of 2022, yet the numbers are actually getting worse by recent reports. So got to give someone feedback and you know they're going to rebuttal you and they're going to say yeah, but and they're going to want to explain it away. I promise you leaders won't tell you this. They don't want to give that feedback. It's exhausting.

Speaker 1: 2:25

I've coached boys volleyball for 31 years and I can't think of many kids I've had like this. But I had one in particular who always said yeah, but, always said yeah, but. And when he would practice he only wanted to work on hitting. He didn't want to work in other parts of his game. So I ended up playing other kids in front of him and his parents got mad and they were furious because it was personal and I'll never forget.

Speaker 1: 2:51

One of the family members said to me well, you know, kids are going to quit if you do this any further. And I smiled. I said, after five years I've had one kid quit and they looked at me with their jaws dropped and it was a family member, not the parents, and I said it's tough, right? So your perception is I attacked this player. Did he tell you he didn't want to play defense? He didn't want to block? Tell you he didn't want to play defense? He didn't want to block? No, I said right. So your perception my intent was never to bench him. My intent was to play him as much as I could because I like him. So it's amazing how much things become more crystallized and clear when we understand the internal battle we have with perception and intent.