Episode
Episode 240 - When Negative Feedback Becomes Too Much
- Published
- Sep 11, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 258
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Summary
Summary Negative feedback can sometimes improve performance and sometimes leave people distracted, discouraged or withdrawing from their work. New research shows that how surprising, disruptive and consequential the feedback feels helps explain those different reactions. This episode looks at how leaders can make difficult feedback clearer and easier to act on. Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 240 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at negative feedback and why the way someone experiences the feedback can matter just as much as what you actually say. Most leaders know that feedback needs to be clear and specific. If something isn't working, we need to talk about it rather than hoping the problem fixes itself. But we've probably also experienced situations where feedback seems to have a much bigger impact than we expected. We raise what feels like a fairly straightforward issue and the person becomes defensive, discouraged or distracted by it for days afterwards. New research published in Human Resource Management helps explain why. Rather than treating every piece of negative feedback as the same, the researchers looked at specific feedback events over a 10-week period. They were particularly interested in how novel, disruptive and critical the feedback felt to the employee. By way of example, imagine telling someone they need to tighten up the formatting in a report. That's negative feedback, but it probably isn't particularly surprising or consequential. Now imagine telling someone who believes they are performing well that there are serious concerns about their overall performance. That's a very different event, even if both conversations could technically be described as negat…