“Change is your friend, not your foe. Change is a brilliant opportunity to grow.” Simon T. Bailey

Chapter 6 Using these tools

Using these tools for Self-Awareness Building

Delivering and receiving feedback are key leadership skills. Feedback is how you manage conflict in leadership roles. There are two main ways to utilize the tools and frameworks presented in this chapter.

First, developing your ability to deliver feedback allows you to hone in on your ability to:

• frame feedback in a positive and productive way
• be concise and specific about how someone can improve and grow
• actively listen
• ask information gathering and clarifying questions
• be assertive and draw boundaries

The second way the tools and framework can help improve your self-awareness is by helping you consider how well you receive feedback from your friends, family, peers, and bosses. This chapter provides some mindsets that are critical for receiving feedback:

• embracing discomfort
• being open to someone else’s perspective

As well as skill sets, such as:

• setting and revisiting goals
• asking questions to further understand the feedback
• identifying your strengths and weaknesses

Getting feedback also provides an interesting insight into what your triggers might be.  If someone gives you feedback on how to improve your work, and an important value you have is hard work, it might be hard for you to hear their feedback as relevant and valuable.  Your initial reaction will likely be defensive, and you will likely try to explain how hard of a worker you are and why your work is the best.  Receiving feedback means that we listen, fully and actively, to the feedback we receive, even if it makes us defensive and uncomfortable.  Feedback is where we learn and grow.  Working on becoming more responsive and less reactive to feedback is an important skill to master.

Using these tools for Other Awareness Building

Delivering and receiving feedback also allows us to understand others in a deeper way.

First, if someone takes the time to give us feedback, we can learn what is important to them, what their expectations are, and how they are willing to interact with us and develop our relationships with them.

Second, when we deliver feedback to someones, we get to learn about them through their reaction and responses, we get to ask questions and actively listen to their answers to learn more about them and their perspective.

Using these tools for Relationship Building