Why leaders without feedback slowly become less sharp

Receiving feedback is easy as long as you ask for it. It only becomes interesting when feedback arrives at a moment when you are not waiting for it. When the tone is not pleasant. When someone brings it clumsily. Or when your first instinct is to defend yourself instead of listening.

Yet that is often exactly where the value is.

Many entrepreneurs, directors and managers say they are open to feedback, but what they often mean is that they are open to feedback as long as it is polite, constructive, positive and delivered at the right moment. That may sound reasonable, but in practice it is also an easy way to dismiss almost all feedback. Because there is always something to criticise about the tone, timing, choice of words or style of the person saying something to you.

That is why I believe you should do something different first when it comes to criticism and feedback.

Ignore the style of the feedback and listen to the intention behind what is being said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j73QIDK8dWk

That does not mean everything someone says is true. It also does not mean people can just say anything to you. But if you only listen to feedback that is perfectly packaged, you run the risk of only learning from people who know exactly how to approach you. And there usually are not that many of them.

Leaders in particular suffer from this. The higher someone rises, the less honest feedback they often receive. Not because there is nothing left to say, but because the people around them become more careful. Employees naturally learn what is and is not safe to say. They sense when a leader gets irritated quickly, takes criticism personally or is mainly interested in confirmation.

And then something dangerous happens.

People do not immediately stop talking. They stop being honest.

Feedback is the accelerator of growth

As children, we learn quickly because the world constantly gives us feedback. When you learn to walk, you fall. When you run too fast, you stumble. When you knock over a glass of lemonade, you no longer have lemonade. It is simple, direct and sometimes painful, but it works. Through feedback, we learn where our limits are, what can be improved and how we move to the next stage.

With adults, it is not that different, except that we have become much better at avoiding feedback. We have explanations, positions, ego, status and sometimes an entire team around us that has learned not to push back too much. As a result, entrepreneurs, directors and managers can slowly end up in an imaginary isolation. They start to believe they see things better than everyone else, while in reality they are allowing fewer and fewer signals in.

That is a missed opportunity for the person and for the company.

Because feedback accelerates growth. Not only growth in performance, but also growth in self-awareness, communication, leadership and humanity. A leader who continues to receive feedback continues to learn. A leader who no longer receives feedback becomes dependent on his own perspective. And no matter how smart you are, your own perspective is always limited.

That makes feedback not a luxury, but one of the most important forms of information you can receive as a leader.

If no one contradicts you anymore, you stand still

Without feedback, growth becomes difficult. And if we do not grow, we stand still. Every entrepreneur, director and manager knows that standing still is dangerous, especially in a world where technology, markets, customer behaviour and competition are changing at high speed.

A company that keeps doing what worked five years ago becomes vulnerable. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But sooner or later, another player will come along that learns faster, listens better and dares to adapt earlier.

We see it everywhere around us. New companies, new technologies and new players do not change markets because they know everything better from day one, but because they learn faster. They listen to customers, to data, to the market and to signals that established companies ignore for too long.

That is feedback too.

Feedback does not only come from employees who say something to you. Feedback comes from customers who leave, employees who become quieter, margins that decline, processes that get stuck, conversations that become more strained and competitors who suddenly move faster than you.

So the question is not whether you receive feedback.

The question is whether you are still listening.

The most dangerous leader is not strict, but unreachable

Entrepreneurs, directors and managers who regularly behave like dictators will sooner or later face a strange consequence. They may think they are being clear, decisive or strong, but in reality they often create fearful people around them. People who nod, swallow, smile and keep their real opinion to themselves.

That is not only unhealthy. It is also bad for the company.

Because a team that no longer gives feedback does not protect the leader. It allows him to drift further and further away from reality. Decisions become less sharp, people take less responsibility, mistakes surface later and good ideas remain unspoken because no one feels like dealing with the hassle.

Many leaders think they mainly need to watch out for people who criticise them. But often you should be more worried about the people who no longer do. Silence is not always trust. Sometimes silence is exhaustion. Sometimes silence is fear. And sometimes silence is the moment people have already checked out internally.

A leader who no longer receives contradiction should therefore not ask why everyone suddenly agrees with him. He should ask what he has done that makes no one dare to be honest anymore.

Giving feedback is also a responsibility

Receiving feedback is important, but giving feedback requires at least as much courage. Especially when it involves someone with more power, status or influence than you. Giving feedback to an entrepreneur, director or manager can be tense, especially when you know that person does not receive criticism easily.

Still, giving feedback can be a gift.

Not because it is always nice. Not because the other person will immediately be happy with it. But because you give someone the chance to see something they may no longer see themselves. That is especially true for people who find it difficult to receive feedback. They often need it the most, precisely because their environment has stopped being honest.

We are quick to think that someone who does not listen anyway does not deserve our feedback. I understand that. On a human level, it makes sense. If someone gets angry every time, waves everything away or makes you feel it is better to keep your mouth shut, you naturally stop.

But the question is whether that is always the best choice.

If you want to give someone a gift and you know they will probably reject it, do you never give anything again? Or do you look for another way to offer the gift?

Giving feedback is not simply saying what you think. It is trying to communicate something in a way that increases the chance that the other person can actually receive it. That requires courage, but also connection.

Giving feedback is different from dumping your frustration

Some people avoid confrontation. When they finally give feedback, they still do it in a way that mainly relieves themselves. They shout from a distance what has been bothering them, send a harsh email or suddenly unload everything in a meeting that they have been storing up for months.

That may feel like relief for a moment, but it is rarely effective.

Then feedback is no longer a gift, but a brick through the window. There may have been a message attached to it, but the chance that the other person will calmly read that message is very small.

So giving feedback requires more than simply saying what you think and feel. Especially if you want the other person to actually do something with it. It requires that you dare to enter the confrontation without immediately destroying the connection.

That is the difference between criticism, confrontation and a courageous conversation.

Criticism can be one-sided. Confrontation can feel like an attack. But a courageous conversation tries to maintain contact while something difficult is being said. That makes it more vulnerable, but also much more powerful.

A courageous conversation starts with connection

Giving feedback in a connecting way does not mean you have to wrap everything in softness. It also does not mean feedback must always feel positive, friendly or comfortable. Sometimes something needs to be said sharply. Sometimes someone needs to be woken up. Sometimes the truth is simply uncomfortable.

But in a courageous conversation, the intention is different.

You are not trying to win. You are trying to make something visible. You are not trying to make the other person smaller. You are trying to make reality bigger, so both of you can see more than before.

That requires connection.

In practice, many people think connection must always come from both sides before you can give feedback. That is not entirely true. Of course it helps enormously if both people are open to the conversation, but often it starts with the person giving the feedback. That person has to try to make contact, not just prove a point.

You can do that by staying calm. By being concrete. By naming behaviour instead of attacking character. By explaining the effect. By leaving room for a response. And perhaps most importantly: by being willing to say sorry if you got it wrong.

There is vulnerability in that.

And that vulnerability is exactly what often makes feedback stronger.

What if someone does not want to receive feedback?

Of course there are people who do not want feedback. Sometimes truly not. No criticism, no reflection, no contradiction and certainly no mirror. Especially for leaders who are used to being in control, feedback can feel like a threat.

Then it becomes difficult.

If someone rejects every form of connection, you cannot keep pushing forever. You cannot force someone to grow. You cannot oblige someone to look honestly at themselves. And you cannot have a courageous conversation alone if the other person only builds walls.

But even then, the question remains interesting: how do you offer the gift?

Maybe not in the meeting where everyone is present. Maybe not at the moment when the other person is under pressure. Maybe not with the words you initially wanted to use. Sometimes you have to look for an opening. A better moment. A smaller entrance. A different form.

And sometimes you also have to accept that someone does not want to receive it.

Giving feedback does not mean you are responsible for the growth of the other person. It means you take responsibility for offering something honest. What the other person does with it ultimately remains up to him or her.

Feedback from self-interest usually backfires

Where feedback often goes wrong is when we pretend we want to help the other person, while in reality we mainly want the other person to change because we are bothered by something.

That is not necessarily wrong. If someone constantly complains, communicates poorly or puts others under pressure, you are allowed to say something about it. But it helps to be honest about your intention.

Sometimes we do not give feedback because we want the other person to grow, but because we want less stress ourselves, seek more recognition or want our work to become easier. Then the feedback is actually more about us than about the development of the other person.

Real feedback in a courageous conversation has a different quality. It is not only about your irritation, but about what the other person may not yet see. About behaviour that has an effect. About patterns that slow down growth. About blind spots that may cost someone dearly.

That makes feedback less selfish and more responsible.

It requires you to ask yourself: am I giving this feedback because I need to get rid of my frustration, or because I genuinely believe the other person can benefit from it?

The other person usually senses that difference faster than you think.

Feedback does not always have to be neatly packaged

A common mistake is that we only take feedback seriously when it is delivered perfectly. Calmly, kindly, constructively, positively and with exactly the right words.

But life does not always work that way.

Sometimes feedback comes messy. Sometimes emotional. Sometimes too sharp. Sometimes at a moment when you are not waiting for it. And sometimes from someone who does not quite know how to say it well.

Of course it helps when feedback is given carefully. But as the receiver, you also have a responsibility. If you only look at the packaging, you may miss the content.

That is why the first thought is so important: ignore the style of the feedback and listen to the intention behind what is being said.

Is someone tearing you down, or is someone trying to show you something?

Is someone only angry, or is there perhaps disappointment, concern or involvement underneath that anger?

Is the tone clumsy, but the message valuable?

Anyone who wants to grow as a leader must learn to listen through the form. Not accept everything. Not believe everything. But investigate whether there is something in it that can help you move forward.

Because feedback does not have to feel pleasant to be valuable.

Learning to fall as a child also hurt. Still, it was necessary in order to learn how to walk.

Good leaders organise feedback

The best leaders do not wait until feedback happens to land on their desk. They organise it. They make it safe enough for people to be honest. They ask deeper questions. They reward contradiction. They do not immediately respond defensively. They show that feedback is not punished, but taken seriously.

That does not mean they take everything on board. A leader does not have to move with every opinion. But he must keep listening. Not because others are always right, but because otherwise he becomes too dependent on his own rightness.

For entrepreneurs, directors and managers, that may be one of the biggest leadership lessons. You do not grow by surrounding yourself with people who confirm you. You grow by allowing people close enough to keep you sharp.

That asks courage from the people around you.

But especially from you.

Because receiving feedback means you have to tolerate, for a moment, that your image of yourself may not be completely accurate. That your behaviour may come across differently than you intended. That your clarity may be experienced as harshness. That your speed may create unrest. That your conviction may take space away from others.

That is not always pleasant.

But it is valuable.

Because leadership without feedback slowly becomes an echo. You still hear sound, but in the end mostly yourself.

And no one becomes better from that.