Some Nonsense I Saw On LinkedIn About Navigating Feedback To Your CEO
Amber Rahim, CPCC, PCC
Helps women own their leadership, have positive impact, without working all the hours of the day * Unconventional Leadership Coach * Speaker * Facilitator * Trainer
LI have lured me into leaving comments on questions they pose. They’re sneaky and appeal to my intellectual pride by saying my expert view is valid. It totally works. I bite.
This week they asked: How do you navigate coaching a CEO who is resistant to feedback and suggestions from their direct reports?
And while I was thinking up my valuable opinion, I spotted some nonsense.
“First understand if the feedback from the DR’s is fair, or defensive. If the CEO has been brought in to make changes, and the direct reports are blockers, then the CEO should rightly be ignoring their feedback.” – written by a CEO, of a coaching org no less.
Head in hands: this is what’s wrong with my industry.
If a CEO is getting feedback at all, they should be happy. It’s hard for people to give feedback up the chain, especially critical feedback. No matter how much EQ they have, the CEO could get upset. And they do control your career, job security, and financial compensation. It’s a big ask to say, “go on, tell me what I’m doing wrong” when you hold all the power.
So how do you navigate a CEO who is resisting feedback?
Firstly, gratitude. Tap in to your gratitude that they cared enough to risk speaking up. Yes you’re nice and all that, it’s still a risk, and they took it. Be grateful.
Secondly, understand what feedback is. Let me explain myself with these next thoughts.
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Here’s my take on the advice the CEO gave:
If the CEO is resisting feedback, how can they possibly tell if the feedback is fair or defensive? If you resist something, you’re not actually seeing or hearing it, so you don’t have enough information to make that judgement.
Besides, it doesn’t matter what the feedback is. All people have a right to choose what to do with feedback, you don’t have to act on it if you don’t see the value.
The important thing is to be open and receptive to feedback, so that you can learn, and so that people are willing to speak up. This is especially important for CEOs because they are at the top of the hierarchy. They have power over everyone in the organisation.
You’re starting point can’t be “is this fair?”.
It needs to be “what can I learn from this feedback?”
It’s what makes receiving feedback hard, we have to put aside our ego, put aside being right, and listen to the information that someone has been brave enough to share with us.
What advice would you give for navigating feedback?