Why are we so bad at giving and receiving feedback?

A few years ago, I was told: “You need to behave differently with senior leaders – be less reactive and calmer.” It wasn’t meant unkindly, but it left me feeling quite discouraged and unsupported.

At work, we often receive feedback collected via our manager, as part of the annual appraisal process, and while it is designed to help us grow, learn and become more self-aware, it often isn’t effective. In this example, the feedback was not contextual, it didn’t speak to my strengths, nor did it allow for me to feel cared for and appreciated. It stuck with me, but not in a good way. Feeling disheartened, it dented my self-esteem and confidence, rather than encouraging me to grow. 😔

So how can we make sure that the feedback we offer others is effective and helpful? “And when we receive feedback, how can we make the most of it, without taking it personally?”

🪟 Broadening awareness: the Johari window

When delivered well, feedback can be one of the greatest acts of care we can offer each other, as we bring into someone’s awareness how their words or behaviours impact the world around them. 💝 Using the Johari window as a model, we know that there are four spaces in our awareness:

🪞 What we know about ourselves and others know too (open)

🤫 What we know that others don’t (hidden)

🙈 What others see that we don’t (blind spots)

🕶️ And what no one sees yet (the unknown)

The purpose of feedback can be to make our blind spots become visible. Thoughtful feedback helps us see ourselves more clearly, especially things we couldn’t have seen alone. So when we give feedback with care, we offer someone the gift of clarity. And when we receive feedback openly, we get to grow our self-awareness. Be mindful though, when someone is already quite self-aware, they do not need much input to grow. Sometimes just asking a thoughtful question can trigger reflection and awareness, no need to labour the point.

💙 Deliver feedback personally: you are responsible

Feedback is best delivered personally – you can see how it lands, and adjust your delivery real time. Feedback passed on via your manager or HR business partner may feel more impersonal and therefore harder to deliver well. It effectively puts more responsibility on the messenger – they now have the task of ensuring the feedback is well understood, helpful and allows the recipient to grow and not get stuck in a negative mindset.

⚖️ Balancing care and challenge: pitfalls of Radical Candour

Kim Scott’s Radical Candor model gives us another layer: it’s not just what you say, but how you say it.She maps feedback along two axes:

🫶  Caring personally

📈 Challenging directly

At its best, feedback lives in the top right: where you care deeply and speak honestly.

🟪 Ruinous empathy = care without honesty

🟥 Obnoxious aggression = honesty without care

🟨 Manipulative insincerity = neither

🟩 Radical candor = both challenging and delivered with care

Radical candor is often misunderstood in two key ways: when managers think of it as permission to just be honest and direct, focusing on only the candour and forgetting about the care. And secondly – and this is a little more prevalent, but less obvious – when managers try to improve how they give feedback by becoming more direct or more caring without considering the person receiving the feedback. The strength of the Radical Candor model isn’t that there is one right way of doing it, but it offers a way of tailoring your feedback to the recipient. It’s critical then to listen in, see how your feedback lands, and adjust your delivery accordingly.

🏢 Feedback needs context and specificity

Finally, feedback needs context and specificity. Feedback often lands badly when it’s vague or judgmental. The SBI model, Situation, Behaviour, Impact, helps make it both clearer and objective – and this is where the feedback I received all those years ago could have particularly been improved.

Here’s an example, in the work context:

🎯In our team meeting this morning (Situation), when you interrupted colleagues (Behaviour), it disrupted the flow and created a negative atmosphere (Impact).

The power of SBI is that it keeps the feedback grounded in reality, it names the moment, what happened, and why it mattered. This offers the recipient clarity and specificity – which matters because it takes away any personal judgement.

👉 Would you like to improve how you give and receive feedback?

Join us for the next session of New Perspectives on Wednesday 23 July 2025, where we’ll explore the art of thoughtful and effective feedback. 🌍Register now