This article is the second in a four-part series on what I call The Feedback Paradox, why one of the most powerful tools for improving leadership and culture is also one of the most avoided.
This article is the second in a four-part series on what I call The Feedback Paradox, why one of the most powerful tools for improving leadership and culture is also one of the most avoided.
The Feedback Paradox: Article 2 of 4
This article is the second in a four-part series on what I call The Feedback Paradox, why one of the most powerful tools for improving leadership and culture is also one of the most avoided.
In the first article, I explored why feedback is one of the hardest leadership tools to use.
Almost every leader I've worked with says some version of this:
"I welcome honest feedback."
Most leaders say this.
But the moment difficult feedback appears, something else often appears too.
Defense.
Not loud defense.
Not aggressive defense.
But subtle forms of explanation, clarification, and justification.
This reaction is so common that it raises an important leadership question:
Why do leaders defend feedback… even when they ask for it?
The answer has less to do with leadership skill than we might think.
It has to do with identity.
All of us carry an internal picture of who we believe we are.
We see ourselves as:
This internal picture isn't ego in the negative sense. It's part of how we make sense of ourselves as professionals and as people.
The challenge is that feedback sometimes contradicts that picture.
A leader who believes they are a strong listener may hear:
"Sometimes it feels like solutions come before people feel fully heard."
A leader who sees themselves as supportive may hear:
"Sometimes when things get busy, it feels like we're expected to figure things out on our own."
A leader who believes they communicate clearly may hear:
"Sometimes I leave our conversations unsure about what you want us to do next."
In these moments, the feedback does more than point to a behavior.
It threatens the identity we hold about ourselves.
I once worked with a senior leader who genuinely wanted feedback from his team.
During a leadership session, one team member said:
"Sometimes when we raise concerns, it feels like you move quickly to explain why the decision was made rather than exploring the concern."
The leader responded thoughtfully.
He explained the context behind the decision. He clarified the constraints the team may not have seen. He walked through the reasoning step by step.
Everything he said was logical. Everything he said was true.
But something important had already happened.
The moment he moved into explanation, the conversation shifted away from the employee's experience and toward defending the decision.
Later, that employee told me quietly:
"That's why people don't like to raise concerns."
The leader believed he had simply provided context.
But the experience the employee had was very different.
When our identity is challenged, the mind naturally moves into protection mode. That protection shows up in very familiar ways.
Leaders may begin:
None of these reactions necessarily come from bad intentions.
In fact, most leaders who defend feedback are trying to do something reasonable.
They are trying to restore the story they believe about themselves.
But the moment a leader begins defending, something subtle happens in the conversation.
The focus shifts away from the other person's experience and toward protecting the leader's identity.
And that is where most feedback conversations quietly break down.
Part of the challenge is that feedback is often misunderstood.
Many leaders unconsciously treat feedback as a claim about truth.
Is it accurate? Is it fair? Is it justified?
But feedback is not truth.
Feedback is a belief formed from someone's experience with you.
That distinction changes everything.
The goal of feedback is not to determine whether the other person is right. The goal is to understand the experience they had.
Instead of asking:
"Is this correct?"
A more useful question is:
"What was the experience that led you to feel this way?"
This question changes the psychological dynamic of the conversation.
For the leader, it reduces the pressure to defend identity.
You are no longer being asked to prove whether the feedback is right or wrong.
You are simply becoming curious about someone else's experience.
For the other person, it creates safety.
They feel heard rather than corrected.
And when people feel heard, they become more willing to continue the conversation.
In that moment, the goal of feedback shifts. It stops being a debate about truth.
It becomes an exploration of experience.
When leaders defend feedback, they often believe they are simply providing context. But the impact on the other person is very different.
Defensiveness sends a subtle message:
"Your experience of me is wrong."
Even when that message is unintentional, people feel it. And once people feel their experience is being dismissed, they begin to do something very predictable.
They stop sharing honestly.
Over time, this creates one of the most common leadership blind spots.
Leaders believe they are open to feedback. But the people around them have quietly learned that certain feedback isn't safe to give.
Defensiveness protects identity.
But it also blocks insight.
Leaders who want honest feedback must learn to do something that feels unnatural at first.
They must separate who they are from how they are experienced.
Who you are may include strong intentions, care for people, and a genuine desire to lead well.
But how you are experienced is shaped by moments, behaviors, tone, and perception.
Those two things are not always the same.
And the gap between them is where the most valuable learning lives.
One helpful mental shift is this:
Feedback is not an attack on your identity. It is information about someone else's experience.
When leaders hold feedback this way, three small practices become possible:
These small shifts make it easier to keep identity separate from feedback.
And when identity relaxes, learning becomes possible.
Understanding why we defend feedback is the first step.
Learning how to receive feedback well is the next.
Because asking for feedback is only the beginning.
The real leadership skill is learning how to listen to it without shutting it down.
That's where we'll go in the next article in this series.
In that article, we'll explore the discipline leaders need to practice if they truly want people to speak honestly.
The essential insights from this article.
Leaders defend feedback because it threatens the internal picture of who they believe they are — the reaction is driven by identity, not skill
Feedback is not truth — it is a belief formed from someone's experience with you, and understanding that distinction changes everything
Defensiveness sends a subtle message that the other person's experience is wrong, causing people to stop sharing honestly over time
The real leadership challenge is separating who you are from how you are experienced — the gap between them is where the most valuable learning lives
Explore more insights on leadership, transformation, and organizational effectiveness. Each piece is designed to challenge your thinking and provide practical frameworks for navigating complexity.
