Feedback is For Confidence

Positive feedback is like a soft-spoken person in a crowded room, easily drowned out. It's as if the positive feedback whispers, considering how little it commands people's attention. At best, it's innocuous:  "Good, no problem here, nothing to worry about, no action required."

Negative feedback, on the other hand, shouts at you: "You've got a problem, you better get after it." That's what most leaders believe, anyway—that the real value of feedback resides in the negatives. "That's where the gold is," they say. "That's what I can do something about." That's perfectly understandable: leaders are natural problem-solvers. "Tell me what's not working, I'll get after it."

Early in my career I believed that too, and I wasn't wrong to careen down that route, nor is the rest of the world. But there is another route, as I eventually discovered, and it runs through the positives.

"Wait," you say, "how can the positives lead to change?"

Lack of confidence, I explain, is at the root of all manner of managerial failings and flaws. Doubt yourself and you hold yourself back, you don't speak up, you pull your punches, you shy away. Or, doubting yourself, you go the other way and do too much, over-prepare, work too hard, making up for deficits that don't exist.

It follows that as the leader's confidence goes up, the distortion level goes down. How is that done? By giving your full attention to the positive feedback, coming to grips with it, letting it sink in.

I once worked with a leader who underestimated how smart she was. But other people called her brilliant. She took it to heart, and concluded, "I'm smarter than I thought. I'll give my team more air-time. I know I talk too much, trying too hard to impress other people." Change she did, powered by up-leveling her opinion of herself and by the boost in morale she got from that.

How about that: the positives pack as much punch as the negatives.