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HANDLING EMOTIONAL REACTIONS TO FEEDBACK
Employees sometimes make mistakes, perform below par, or display inappropriate behaviors, and it's up to their supervisor or manager to talk to them about it. Feedback is essential to growth and improvement for both employees and leaders. It provides employees with honest and specific information about the status of their work, and their manager's standards.
But few leaders enjoy feeling like "the bad guy" or facing an employee's emotional reactions to feedback. The leader who can see feedback as a positive and ongoing communication tool will find many opportunities for growth and be able to build stronger relationships with employees.
But what do you do when an employee shuts down, argues every point or starts to cry during a feedback session? It's natural for an employee to feel defensive while receiving feedback, and it's also natural for leaders to be unnerved by such reactions. Understanding that both you and the employee may feel uncomfortable or even unsafe is the first step to managing emotional reactions to feedback.
When emotions overwhelm a feedback session, defensive behaviors can cause you or the employee to back down, lose control or change focus. That's why we developed SAFE™, an acronym that helps us organize our thinking and keep our cool while we work through defensive moments.
S A F E
Seek to Understand
Acknowledge Emotions
Focus on Needs and Outcomes
Encourage Alternative Behaviors
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Using SAFE can lower heated emotions while identifying genuine concerns. Here are some ways to use SAFE if you sense an employee becoming defensive during a feedback session:
Seek to Understand:
Neutrally point out the defensive behavior you're observing that represents the emotional reaction and ask to discuss it. Ask open-ended questions to learn the source of the defensiveness, and don't be critical of the employee's explanation. ("I see that you become silent and look away whenever I mention your lateness record. Could we talk about why you stop speaking and look away?")
Acknowledge Emotions:
Although your feedback is about a specific, work-related behavior, the current problem is the employee's emotional reaction that has derailed the discussion. Address the feelings you're sensing from the other person and ask them if your sense is accurate. Let the employee know that you acknowledge their feelings without agreeing or disagreeing with them. ("It sounds like this feedback is upsetting to you, is that why you've stopped talking?")
Focus on Needs and Outcomes:
Once the employee is able to discuss the source of their emotional reaction and feel their reactions have been acknowledged, focus on what's most important to the employee and to you, and how the employee's emotional reaction is affecting the feedback session. ("You said that you're upset because you don't want to lose your job. I don't want you to lose your job either because you're a good employee. But if we can't discuss this, we may not be able to prevent another lateness.")
Encourage Alternative Behavior:
Promote ways to keep the communication open and honest and to prevent defensive behaviors from derailing the discussion again. ("Let's spend a little time planning how to avoid another lateness, but as we're talking, could we make a pact that if something bothers either of us again, we'll discuss it openly?")
Will the SAFE model work every time? Working with defensiveness is challenging, and there may be times when emotions can overwhelm your efforts. But, the more you practice SAFE, the more skilled you'll be in giving feedback, and in turning defensive moments into learning experiences for both you and your employees.
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