How to Receive Feedback at Work Without Getting Defensive

Nov 4

Feedback rarely changes your career. What you do after it does. This episode is a real look at how to receive feedback at work without shutting down, getting defensive, or turning one comment into a verdict on who you are.

Host Heather Redisch of Adulting101 Masterclass shares the piece of feedback that changed her career more than twenty years ago and breaks down why feedback feels personal even when it is almost always about a behavior. She walks through how not to get defensive about feedback in the exact moment it lands, and why sleeping on a hard conversation beats reacting to it on the spot.

Heather also shares an example of two employees who hear the identical critique and end up in completely different places three months later. One explains herself. The other asks a few short questions that show her manager she is willing to learn. Along the way she covers how to be more coachable at work, the difference between feedback that feels like criticism and feedback that feels like coaching, and what actually gets said behind closed doors when managers decide who is ready for the next promotion.

If you have ever wondered how to give constructive feedback yourself, or if you manage someone and keep putting off a hard conversation, this episode hands you the language for both sides of the table. Press play to learn how to receive feedback at work in a way that actually builds your career instead of shrinking it.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Why Feedback Rarely Changes Your Career

01:00 The Performance Review That Changed Everything

03:22 Why Feedback Feels Personal, Not Professional

08:16 The Employee Who Kept Interrupting Meetings

10:26 What Makes Someone Coachable at Work

12:49 Two Employees, One Piece of Feedback

15:13 Why High Performers Get More Feedback

17:39 How to Receive Feedback at Work

20:08 Sleep on It Before You React

22:35 Giving Feedback Without Waiting Too Long

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