Sometimes it’s easy to forget that workplace leaders are human too, and not immune to giving teams badly communicated– or altogether negative– feedback. If you’ve ever found yourself in a position where you’re receiving poor feedback or feedback that you disagree with, it’s important to keep a growth mindset and ask yourself: what can I still learn from this?

While there’s ego, reputation, and self-preservation involved with navigating negative feedback in the workplace, knowing how to approach it with a growth mindset is crucial to long-term development and strengthening your emotional resilience in the workplace.

3 Tips for Navigating Negative Feedback in the Workplace

The process of fielding negative feedback in the workplace may not be universal, but we’ve found that this guidance from Harvard Business Review is an excellent place to start:

1. Don’t strive for an immediate resolution

   Instead of immediately getting defensive, take a little time and space to process a negative evaluation you received at work from your manager, employer, or any other workplace leader. This will let your supervisor know that you’re concerned and considering the evaluation without outright challenging it.

2. Follow up after reflecting

   If you take time to sit with negative feedback, make sure that you actually get back to your supervisor for a second conversation. Acknowledge the fact that you might not completely agree with it and would like help in understanding how you can make a more valuable contribution to the team. This way, you can comfortably continue the conversation in a way that is respectful, non-confrontational, and overall productive for all parties.

3. No matter what, remain professional 

   While this may be a given, it’s always helpful to be reminded that these conversations in the workplace should remain entirely professional. Negative feedback can often elicit strong emotional reactions, but it is up to the recipient to manage their feelings about the situation in a healthy and appropriate way.

A growth mindset is crucial to effective communication, even when we don’t agree with the feedback

Receiving negative feedback is never a fun thing, but navigating these kinds of circumstances gets easier with effective communication and attuned emotional intelligence skills. Our premier professional development program, Activate, is intended to help managers do exactly that. In 2022 alone, Leadology helped 91 people engage in purposeful conversations and received toolkits for leadership to better prepare themselves with the skills needed to navigate difficulties in the workplace. 

Consider a free 30 minute strategy session to learn more about how Activate can help you reframe and grow from workplace challenges of all kinds.

Here’s to approaching negative feedback as an opportunity to grow.

Carrie + The Leadology Team