"[C]ognitive processes of both managers and subordinates can contribute to difficulties in giving and receiving feedback."

Giving feedback and managing critique can be emotional for managers and subordinates alike. Should managers have training on how to do this? Should company's require training? How often do company's look at a potential manager's communication skills in critique before hiring?

Study Methodology

• Examine some of the cognitive and emotional dynamics associated with the receiving role. This will provide an understanding of the potential difficulties managers face in approaching subordinates.
• Examine several feedback statements that were given by managers, and we will illustrate their counterproductive characteristics.
• Describe the cognitive and emotional dynamics that affect feedback givers and that lead them to produce such nonactionable feedback.
• Illustrate how understanding the dynamics associated with feedback giving and receiving can be used to help managers produce more actionable feedback.
  

Food for thought: "Shelly Taylor, et al. have argued that positive illusions are a hallmark of mental health and are crucial to enabling people to avoid depression and maintain the self-esteem, confidence, and optimism that keep them motivated, persistent, and productive.'6 Similarly, Bandura has demonstrated that high perceived self-efficacy enhances performance on a variety of tasks, and he has argued that seeing yourself as more capable than you really are enhances your performance more than accurate self-perceptions. Thus, subordinates may resist feedback not only because feedback seems inaccurate, but because accepting critiques could undermine their self-esteem and self-efficacy."