354: What Tough Feedback Is Really Telling You

This video is about My Feedback can be difficult to hear, especially when it conflicts with how you see yourself.

You believe you are confident, but someone describes you as dismissive. You consider yourself collaborative, yet colleagues experience you as closed off. You think you are being decisive, but your team sees you as unwilling to listen.

That disconnect may feel unfair. However, it can also reveal one of the most important factors affecting your leadership growth: the gap between what you intend and what other people experience.

In this episode of The Mid-Career GPS Podcast, I examine how the leadership perception gap can influence your reputation, professional relationships, promotion opportunities, and career advancement.

I am recording this episode after delivering the closing keynote at NextUp’s Rising Stars Conference, where participants used feedback from a 360 assessment to strengthen their leadership development. That experience reinforced something I see repeatedly in my coaching and speaking work.

Most mid-career professionals do not lack skill, experience, or commitment. What they often lack is accurate, actionable feedback from people they trust.

Why Self-Awareness Matters for Career Advancement

Leadership is not defined solely by what you intend. It is also defined by what other people experience when they work with you.

You may intend to challenge your team, but they experience you as overly critical. You may intend to give people autonomy, but they experience a lack of support. You may intend to demonstrate confidence, but others experience you as unwilling to consider different perspectives.

Your intentions matter, but they do not erase the impact of your behavior.

This is why leadership self-awareness is essential for anyone seeking a promotion, greater influence, or a more strategic role. 

You cannot close a perception gap you are unwilling to examine.

Why “You’re Doing Great” Can Stall Your Career

Some of the most limiting feedback mid-career professionals receive sounds positive.

“You’re doing great.”

“Keep doing what you’re doing.”

“You’re reliable.”

“We can always count on you.”

These statements may be sincere, but they do not necessarily help you grow.

Being reliable, trusted, and busy does not automatically mean you are viewed as influential, strategic, or ready for the next level of leadership. Vague praise can prevent you from identifying the behavior changes required to advance your career.

In this episode, I explain how to look beneath general compliments and ask better questions about your leadership effectiveness, visibility, and readiness for greater responsibility.

How to Process Difficult Feedback Without Becoming Defensive

Tough feedback can trigger embarrassment, frustration, anger, or self-doubt. It is easy to dismiss the feedback, question the other person’s motives, or immediately defend your intentions.

Instead, I share a practical process for evaluating feedback more objectively:

1. Pause before responding.
2. Treat the feedback as a data point rather than an absolute truth.
3. Separate your emotional reaction from the information being offered.
4. Look for patterns across different people and situations.
5. Identify what the behavior may be costing you.
6. Choose one specific behavior to change.

One person’s opinion may be an outlier. When several people describe a similar experience, however, you have a pattern worth examining.

The goal is not to change everything about yourself. The goal is to identify one behavior that could improve your leadership presence, relationships, credibility, or promotion readiness.

How to Get 360-Style Feedback Without a Formal Assessment

You do not need access to a formal 360 leadership assessment to receive valuable feedback.

You can begin by having intentional conversations with your manager, peers, direct reports, mentors, former colleagues, and trusted professional contacts. The key is to speak with people who will offer honest insight rather than simply validate what you already believe.

Consider asking questions such as:

• What is one leadership strength I should continue using?
• What is one behavior that may be limiting my effectiveness?
• When have you seen me at my best as a leader?
• What do I do that may make it harder for people to work with me?
• What would I need to demonstrate for you to see me as ready for the next level?

Do not collect feedback merely to prove that you are doing well. 

Use it to understand how others experience your leadership and where a small change could create a meaningful difference.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

• Why unclear feedback can create confusion and stall leadership development
• How 360 assessments reveal leadership strengths and perception gaps
• Why leadership is shaped by what people experience, not only by what you intend
• How positive but vague feedback can quietly limit career advancement
• Why reliability, trust, and busyness are not the same as influence and strategic value
• How defensiveness and poorly delivered feedback prevent meaningful growth
• How to decode vague praise that may signal a leadership limitation
• A step-by-step process for responding to difficult feedback
• How to identify patterns instead of overreacting to one person’s opinion
• How to gather honest, 360-style input without using a formal assessment
• How changing one behavior can improve your leadership reputation and career opportunities

Build the Leadership Reputation You Want

The feedback that frustrates you most may contain the insight you need most.

You do not have to agree with every comment you receive. You do need to remain curious about the patterns shaping how others experience you.

When you learn how to separate intention from impact, you can make more strategic decisions about how you communicate, lead, and show up at work. That self-awareness can help you strengthen your professional relationships, increase your influence, and position yourself for your next career opportunity.

Listen to this episode and identify one perception gap that may be affecting how you are seen when you are not in the room.

Bring This Conversation to Your Organization

I speak to organizations and professional associations about career advancement, leadership effectiveness, communication, and how we SHOW UP at work.

If you know an organization that is looking for a keynote speaker or workshop facilitator, I would appreciate an introduction. I design engaging and practical experiences that help mid-career professionals and leaders increase their self-awareness, strengthen their influence, and lead more impactfully.

To discuss a keynote, workshop, or facilitated leadership development program, connect with me through the information in the show notes, on LinkedIn, or email me at john@johnneral.com.

Remember, how you SHOW UP matters.

Transcript

Welcome And Who This Is For

John Neral 0:03

Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Mid-Career GPS Podcast. I'm your host, John Merrill. This is the show for mid-career professionals who feel stuck, undervalued, or unsure what's next, and know that doing more isn't the answer. Here we focus on how you show up. That means how you make clear decisions, build influence, and take control of your career. Let's get started.

A Keynote Spark And A Big Lesson

John Neral 0:32

Well, hey there. I hope you have had a great week. And I just want to let you know, I am recording this the day before this episode drops. So this episode is going to drop on Tuesday, June 23rd. And the reason I am recording this just the day before is that I just got back from an incredible week in Dallas, Texas, where I had the opportunity to deliver the closing keynote for Next Up's Rising Stars Conference. So Rising Stars is a program through Next Up, which supports mid-level leaders and professionals as they grow their leadership toolkit. I've been a part of this program for the last six years, but in the last five years, I have served as one of their coaches. And this year, I stepped into a new role to deliver the closing keynote. And I just want to give a big shout out and a welcome to anyone who was at the conference last week that is now listening to this podcast. It was a pleasure meeting you and having a chance to speak at the event. If we have connected on LinkedIn, I just want you to know I hope we continue to grow our connection there. And I'm really, really glad you are here this week because I'm going to share a couple of things from last week that I think is noteworthy for everyone who is listening.

When Feedback Does Not Match You

John Neral 1:59

Have you ever gotten feedback in your career that didn't align or match with how you see yourself? I mean, the kind of feedback where you walk away and you go, I don't know where they got that idea from. The core problem here when we receive that kind of feedback is if it's not clear and it's not clean, or the person delivering that feedback perhaps has some kind of agenda behind it, we are left more confused than ever. And it's really hard for us to grow as leaders and show up as leaders when we don't have really clean and clear feedback. So what I often see with the people in the organizations I work with is that for the mid-career, mid-level leader and professional, it's not that you're lacking skill. You are lacking that accurate self-awareness. And that has to come from a trusted source.

What A 360 Really Reveals

John Neral 3:06

So one of the things that's part of the Next Up Rising Stars program is that all of the participants go through a 360 assessment or 360 review. And the 360 tool that is used is from the Center for Creative Leadership. I am certified in that 360 assessment as well. And one of the things that I find is so powerful in any kind of 360 tool, but I have to talk from the perspective of the tool or the instrument that I know best, is there are certain competencies within that tool where the participant is being reviewed by their boss, their supervisor, their peers, their direct reports, and other people within the organization whom they trust to deliver that kind of feedback. And I want to be clear that by merely taking a 360 assessment, it doesn't change your career. What you do with it does. And for many mid-career leaders and professionals, you may not have a 360 available at your level within your organization, or this may be a new benefit that you have given the new role you've elevated to. And so what a 360 actually reveals is it is a tool to help you show up and own where you are and look in the mirror. So you get all of this feedback from what we call raiders, these people whom you assign. And one of the things that you want to make sure you're accurately looking at is to see if there is any kind of mismatch between your intention and how you are being received or perceived. Okay. So for example, you might say that you're an extremely collaborative individual, but the people whom are rating your 360 may find that you're closed off or you're shut off in some way. Or you may think that you're someone who gives very clear and direct feedback, but from your 360 and from people who have either directly experienced you giving them feedback, they may say you might be a little abrasive or a little dismissive. So in any kind of 360 review, your perception gap ends up being your growth edge. And by your growth edge, I mean that is the part for you to get really curious about how you're showing up as a leader and where you may want to work on your reputation or even look at how your brand is being interpreted or received. Remember, leadership is not what you intend. Leadership is what people experience. And so if there is a gap or a discrepancy between what you're intending and what people are experiencing, that is an opportunity for you to lean in and get really, really curious. Now, in my years of debriefing 360 assessments, there may very well be an outlier or a feedback comment that doesn't really align with all the others. We still want to be curious about that. But here's the thing: are you seeing a noticeable pattern in terms of how you are being reviewed or rated on the 360? And look, I said this from the stage last week, and I said this to people I've worked with on 360s before. If you're going through a 360 review, you are getting ready to have an extremely vulnerable experience. Because no matter how good that 360 is, you're going to find something in that assessment and you will perseverate on it or you will worry about it and go, why did they rate me that way? Or what did I do to this person? And even though you don't know who the raters are because it's anonymous, unless, for example, you only have one boss and that's the boss who rates you. And so therefore you know how they're rating you. But this is where we just want to be as curious and open-minded as possible to look at the data and see if there is a gap we either want to close or we want to work on to ultimately close that particular gap.

Why Mid-Career Growth Slows Down

John Neral 8:19

360s are typically available for senior executives, senior level professionals within the organization, and at times mid-level leaders as well. In our early career days, we don't get 360s. Often because we are working directly with someone in that organization who is providing us with direct feedback. There may be some elements of coaching or support involved, but in our early career, we are constantly being corrected. It's you didn't do this right, do this correctly. It's it's always about um, I often think of it as it's like putting a model train back on the track so it runs correctly. Sometimes it gets bumped a little bit. And so we have to kind of pick it up and put it back on the track to get it moving forward again. I've talked about this before on the podcast, but for the mid-career professional, oftentimes you may find yourself falling into a trap where your supervisors or superiors are giving you feedback that ultimately is not helpful. You're doing a great job. Keep it up, keep doing what you're doing, everything's fine. And you may be craving or hungry for feedback that you want to be maybe a little critical or a little nuanced to help move you forward. The danger here is this. The less we are scrutinized, and I don't want scrutinized to be looked at as a quote unquote bad word, but the less we're scrutinized, the slower our growth is. If you're trying to move from being someone who is reliable and is always executing, and you want to be more of the strategist or visionary, you need feedback in order to help you get there. So the less feedback you receive, the slower your growth is going to be. And how many of you who are listening have been told in the past you do you're doing great work. Keep doing what you're doing, and you are not getting promoted. Because being trusted doesn't mean you're influential. Being reliable doesn't mean you're strategic. And being busy does not mean you're valuable. At mid-career, the question I want you to lean into here is no longer, am I doing my job? Question needs to be, how am I being experienced? Over the last few months, we've talked on the podcast here about how doing good work is no longer enough. That doesn't mean you're not supposed to be doing good work. Good work is understood. It's the norm, it is expected. But if you're saying to yourself, Am I doing my job well? That's a yes or no. How are you being experienced? That is the question that's going to unlock where something might be next for you is. From the manager or leadership side, we talk about how feedback is vital. We need to be able to give feedback to our direct reports and our team members in order to help them move forward. And admittedly, we want that feedback as well. We want feedback from our leadership to help move us forward.

How We Waste Useful Feedback

John Neral 12:01

But most people waste feedback. There's a few ways this happens. So I am not a fan of the empathy sandwich. The empathy sandwich is when you're giving feedback to someone and you say something nice, and then you say something critical or you want them to change, and then you end with something nice. What's the last thing we remember? The last thing we are told. So if you end with something nice, you're not, you're discrediting the critical feedback that needs to be delivered. The other part where we waste feedback is we admittedly let our emotions get in the way. We all want to be told we're doing a great job. We all want to be told we are valued inside of our organization. But when we get feedback, it is so easy for us to dismiss it, to justify it, to rationalize it, or even ignore it. And it comes up like this, you have no clue what you're talking about. Or you're just being a blank. They have it out for me. Is the feedback legit? Is the feedback something admittedly you need to be hearing, even though it might be difficult to process? Here's the feedback that I want you to be really curious about. When you're given that piece of feedback, whether it's in a 360 or somewhere else, where is that showing up for you? What pattern exists? Where have you heard that before? I have worked with people who in my in my education career, my corporate career, if you will, um, one of the biggest pieces of feedback that they received was that they felt like they weren't listening. Now, they might be somebody who processes information pretty quickly, but if your leadership doesn't believe you're listening to them, especially when you're being given directions on a project, that's a problem. Now, that might not be the intention, but that's where you want that feedback to get really curious about and go, okay, why are they experiencing it in that way? And if we believe that to be true, what do I need to do differently so that feedback doesn't become a pattern and repeat itself?

Decoding Feedback That Sounds Positive

John Neral 14:47

Sometimes we are given feedback that we want to be able to interpret, but might be meant differently. For example, Susan is really, really helpful around the around the office and in the organization. She is always dependable, and you can clearly count on her for anything. Susan's actually overextended. Susan's got involved in too many things, and she's not really given the time, effort, and energy to her own work. How about this one? Barry is very confident in his job. Well, okay, what does that actually look like? Because if the confidence is being perceived as being dismissive, that's not a good thing. Jeremy is a very detailed-oriented individual. I've seen that in cases where what the leader actually meant was Jeremy's not very strategic. Your biggest growth limitation is often your greatest strength. Meaning you just use it too much. If you've ever gone on a job interview recently, and by the way, I I do not like those questions. What's your greatest strength? What's your greatest weakness? Right? Your greatest strength is often your biggest growth limitation. So how can you take the feedback that you're given, be it in a 360 or be it in a performance review or be it verbally, how can you take that feedback and process it properly?

A Simple Process To Handle Feedback

John Neral 16:44

Well, here's what I recommend. Number one, pause. Take a breath, count to five. You got a lot of thoughts going through your head. You want to make sure the right one comes out. So just pause. Don't react, don't defend, just pause. Secondly, recognize that the feedback is a data point. And do your best to separate emotion from it. You are allowed to feel, right? We're all human beings. We feel. We cannot help but feel. Especially when we pride ourselves on doing really great work. And in doing so, we don't want to disappoint. We don't want to upset. We don't want to make someone happy. Recovering people please are here. But nevertheless, you're allowed to feel it. You are not allowed to ignore it. Awareness without action is avoidance. So you're not allowed to ignore it. But the third thing here is look for patterns. One comment, one incident. Okay, we're gonna treat that as a data point. When it happens over and over again, that's a signal. And number four, ask what that feedback is costing you. When you get that particular piece of feedback, pause for a moment and ask, what is that feedback actually costing you? Is it costing you a promotion? Is it costing you visibility? Is it costing you influence? Is it costing you the opportunity to connect and network with people inside of your organization? Once you have had an opportunity to process all of those things, choose one behavior to change. During last week's closing keynote, I shared my show up six strategies as an overview for recapping the event. And so the show up six strategies again set ground rules, have intentional conversations, own where you are, welcome new opportunities, use your genius, protect and promote your brand. And I invited them to think about everything they learned this week and pick one. Pick one thing to work on over the next 30, 60, 90 days. That one thing to change that behavior, that's what you focus on. So maybe it's speaking up in meetings and adding something of value. Maybe it's to work on how you're delegating your um your tasks that somebody else can do to develop them, but then you're able to have more time to be more strategic. Whatever feedback we get, it is useless unless it changes behavior.

Feedback Should Shift Or Maintain

John Neral 20:04

But one of my favorite books is called How to Say Anything to Anyone by Sherry Harley. And when she talks about feedback, and to this day, it is still the best definition I've ever heard about feedback, what she says is feedback is designed for two things. It is designed to either shift behavior or maintain behavior. And if you are delivering feedback for any reason other than shifting someone's behavior or maintaining behavior, check your agenda. Check your agenda when giving that feedback. So we want to give feedback that is meaningful and intentional, but certainly is designed to help change a behavior. And in what I have seen with these 360s is sometimes there might be a rating or a comment or a note somewhere in the 360 that you're left uncertain as to exactly what that particularly means, you have an opportunity to be really curious and ask about that. It may not directly be with the person that provided that feedback, because again, it's anonymous, but it does let you be really curious to show up from that place to go, okay, if I want to get to the next level, I need to be able to address this.

Getting Real Feedback Without A 360

John Neral 21:25

Now, maybe you're sitting there and you're saying, John, this is all great, but I don't have access to a 360. My company doesn't provide it. I don't have the money to pay for a 360 or even work with someone on how to do that. So this isn't really helpful. Well, here's how we're going to make it helpful. You are 100% responsible for your career, and you have an opportunity to own where you are. You do not need a formal 360 to get real feedback. You need to be vulnerable and you need to be courageous. So I have worked with clients in the past where they don't have access to a 360 within their organization, but we identify people to whom they can have an intentional conversation with to ask them a series of directed questions that are designed to give them the feedback they need to move forward rather than the feedback they want. In other words, we all want to be told we're doing a great job. But what we need is the information to help move us forward. Okay. So there are there are ways to do that. And you can ask people at different levels within your organization. You can ask people outside of your individual department or whatever what they know of you. What are they hearing about you when you're not in the room? If you only ask people who like you, you're really not asking for feedback. You're asking for validation. That's why any of these conversations not only are powerful, but they are also vulnerable. Like you gotta put on your your big boy and big girl pants on here and get a little tough skin and stuff because you might hear something that may be difficult to hear, but ultimately it's the information you need. That is the part about showing up. Getting the information you need to identify exactly when, where, and how to move your career forward. I'm curious, what is it about feedback that gets you stuck or gets you frustrated in any way, shape, or form?

Lab Invite And Speaker Connection Ask

John Neral 23:46

Right. These are some of the things that we cover in the Show Up Leadership Lab. Show Up Leadership Lab is my monthly membership program. You can learn more about it in the show notes or visit johnner.com forward slash resources. But I do want to end with this. I have spoken on a variety of stages. I have delivered keynotes for various organizations and such. Um, I walked away from last week feeling a sense of energy and being empowered that um was just a gift, you know, to be in that room with those amazing rising stars and an organization I care deeply about. And so here's where I need your help. Um, if you know someone who hires speakers who is looking for a speaker, looking for someone to come in and facilitate a workshop, if you would be willing to connect us, I would greatly appreciate that. Um, it might be someone in your learning and development part of your organization, it might be someone in your HR department. It may even be you. But I work with small teams and large teams. And if there is a way I can help you and your organization show up to have a different level of conversation, show up to retain the amazing talent you have within the organization, or in a way to show up and to continue to cultivate and develop the amazing talent and leaders you have in your organization to get them to the next level. Let's chat, connect with me on LinkedIn or email me at john at johnnarrell.com. I would greatly appreciate that. So, my friends, we are uh almost at the end of June. It is crazy enough, but we continue to build your mid-career GPS. And we will do that one mile or one step at a time. And how you show up matters. Make it a great rest of your day.

Share The Show And Final Next Steps

John Neral 25:48

If you enjoyed this episode, don't keep it to yourself. Kindly share it with someone who needs it. And if you're tired of feeling stuck, overlooked, or underutilized in your career, go to my website, johnnerrell.com to get started. There you'll find free resources, ways to work with me, and details about the Show Up Leadership Lab, my signature membership for mid-career professionals who want to lead better, get noticed, and elevate their career. All the links are in the show notes. You can grab what you need right there. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. And if you're getting value from the show, take 30 seconds to leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Remember, how you show up matters, and I'll see you next time.