The Hurt When Our Communication Approach is Being Criticized
"I'm not really like that and I hate that. It just bothers me that everybody's making me out to be this way.'"
It can be painful to learn that we don’t come across as positively to other people with our communication behavior as we perceive and assume. We just “know” that we are more professional and nicer than which we are given credit. That is upsetting.
The reality is that we may very well be presenting ourselves in an unflattering manner that we are not recognizing.
"(The media) made me out to be this sort of Attila the Hun bad guy,” said Nick Saban, a seven-time national champion as head football coach at the University of Alabama and someone considered as one of the best college football coaches, if not the best, of all time.
Now retired, Saban was known for showing little tolerance for what he didn’t believe was accurate when reading or hearing from reporters or fans. He was both loved and criticized for his very bold approach (you can observe it in YouTube clips).
Early on in his career, while coaching at Michigan State University, he admitted he was stressed and not feeling confident.
“And I would go home and I'd say, 'I'm not really like that and I hate that. It just bothers me that everybody's making me out to be this way.'
“And (my wife) said, 'Do you ever look at yourself? Just look at yourself. You're nervous, you're anxious, you're curt with people, you don't respect them. You know, you say they're asking dumb questions. I mean, what do you expect?'“
Saban didn’t quite “expect” that answer from the person who has long been a keen observer of his behavior. He didn’t like what he heard, at least initially.
"And I really got pissed,” Saban said. “But then when I thought about it, I said, ‘you know, she's right.’”
Clarity and understanding can be missing and necessary adjustments don’t get made. People have blind spots, which is why they can be surprised that they are negatively judged for how they come across. The unwanted judgment and criticism develops.
“We live in the gap between intention and perception,” says Patrice Williams Lindo, a career strategist and leadership coach and the CEO at Career Nomad. “We think we’re presenting ourselves one way but people are experiencing us differently, often because we’re too close to our own habits, stress responses or default behaviors to see them clearly.
“The answer to this lies between attunement and entrenchment, but that discussion is for another day.”
What we are most thinking about can at times be a distraction from important details.
“Stress, insecurity or simply being too focused on ourselves rather than the people we’re interacting with can distort our understanding of how we’re being perceived,” explains Mosun Fapohunda, a consultant psychiatrist at Cassiobury Court.
“There's also a tendency to justify our actions or attitudes to protect our sense of self, which further blocks clarity.”
The task, not the people, can be the driver of communication that may not land well.
“When we have a stake in something, it's easy to consider our intentions rather than our delivery,” says Mandi St. Germaine, co-founder at MBS, The Woman Beyond the Cape, which helps to empower women with wellness, spirituality and community.
“Stress, exhaustion or perfectionism can lead us to appear patronizing or intimidating without intending to. Emotions obscure our clarity and we struggle to see ourselves from others' eyes.”
Saban was offended at what his wife told him about his professional communication and the harsh judgment he was receiving. Eventually, he accepted that what he was told was accurate. Acceptance can be difficult to tolerate and believe.
It requires strength.
“The first thing is vulnerability,” says Fapohunda. “It takes courage to really listen when someone we trust points out something we might not want to hear about ourselves.
“We need to leave our defensiveness at the door and embrace the opportunity for growth. Acceptance comes from understanding that feedback isn’t an attack but a mirror.
“When we trust the person giving it, we can view the feedback as a reflection of how we’re impacting others, rather than a reflection of our worth as a person. The key is to recognize that personal growth often means facing uncomfortable truths.”
“Trusting the individual giving the feedback,” St. Germaine says, and “being able to distinguish between our self and criticism. It's normal to feel defensive but it's only when we react with, ‘What if they are right,’ taking a step back and thinking instead of reacting, that allows us to see patterns that otherwise we would have not even noticed.”
“At MBS, we are grace and self-aware, acknowledging that looking into the mirror is leadership, to have people surrounding us who will challenge us, help us to become more of who we can be.”
Williams Lindo provides three recommendations to consider:
“Pause the ego. The natural reaction to tough feedback: defend, justify, explain. Instead, we have to pause and say, ‘What if they’re right?’
“Trust the mirror. If multiple people reflect the same pattern back to you, it’s not a misunderstanding, it’s a message.
“Reframe the story. Instead of thinking, ‘They don’t understand me,’ shift to ‘What can I adjust so I’m understood?’”
Williams Lindo provides an analogy to elaborate.
“Think about it like this: If five people say your headlights are off, do you argue? Or do you check the switch?”
We can learn and teach ourselves to catch high-risk communication in the moment when we may feel pulled to revert to bad habits.
“Take a moment and think about how you'd feel if you were standing in the other person's shoes,” St. Germaine says. “If we can take a moment to reflect on ourselves before we respond, we can shift from reaction to intentionality.
“This is something I have had to learn in leadership, taking a deep breath and reminding myself that kindness and clarity aren't always returned. If we make leading with empathy a top priority, we create the rooms where people hear and see each other.”
Williams Lindo says it doesn’t take much time to do a quick assessment on that front.
“Use the three-second rule,” she suggests. “Before reacting, take three seconds to breathe and ask: ‘How is this coming across?’”
Body language is communication and communicators know it yet they can either not care in a heated moment or forget it. That’s an error. Yet it’s not just a leader’s body.
“Watch body language, yours and theirs,” Williams Lindo says. “Are people leaning in or pulling away?” Examining yourself can reveal much. “Facial tension? Crossed arms? These are real-time cues that you might not be communicating what you think you are,” Williams Lindo says.
It could be helpful to create a positive trigger to assist in being experienced more positively.
“Set a personal anchor,” Williams Lindo says. “Pick a phrase or reminder to ground yourself before speaking, such as, ‘Speak with clarity, not defensiveness.”
Focusing on small increments of development is the way forward.
“At the end of the day, the goal isn’t perfection, it’s progress,” Williams Lindo says. “The more self-aware we become, the more we shift from unintended impact to intentional influence.”
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