Women in Leadership

If you ask for feedback and you take the feedback personally, you will create an environment where people tell the boss “what she wants to hear.”

How many times have we found ourselves in a situation in which we feel as though we need to ‘play the game’? Its so much more comfortable and advantageous to work somewhere you feel that isn’t necessary.

If you are already in a leadership position, It’s important to save your strong negative emotions when you have asked the team for feedback on an idea that is yours.

If you inappropriately express emotions while receiving feedback, you will definitely receive less HONEST feedback in the future.

If you have asked for feedback and you take unwanted feedback personally (and openly in an emotional way), you will hurt your creditability and create an environment where people tell the boss “what she wants to hear”.

Daniel Goleman’s idea of Emotional Intelligence is the ability to recognize our own feelings as well as the feelings of others. If you have an open discussion, you want people to feel comfortable to HONESTLY give feedback without the fear of upsetting the boss.

We also think its important to discuss research by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves.

They found that 90 percent of top performers are high in emotional intelligence.

Though when used inaccurately, women tend to suffer the biggest fallback. When we think about it, We know that the military is a male dominated sector. Although the numbers of males outweigh the numbers of women, we have heard people say “she is overly emotional” far MORE times that we have heard folks say, “he is overly emotional”.

So as you go forth, prepare yourself to receive feedback. Don’t avoid it, its a great thing. Its necessary to become a better leader.