Giving and Receiving Feedback

Feedback is the most powerful development tool an organization has, and almost universally, Indian organizations are doing it wrong. The problem is not that managers do not understand feedback's importance — they do, and most of them have attended at least one training that told them to give more of it. The problem is that feedback sits at the intersection of two deeply uncomfortable human experiences: receiving criticism and delivering it, both of which trigger social anxiety and status threat in ways that most workplace training completely ignores.

In hierarchical cultures, feedback carries additional weight. When a senior person delivers critical feedback, the junior employee is not just processing information about their performance — they are navigating a power dynamic that determines their salary, promotion, and professional future. When that feedback is delivered poorly — without behavioral specificity, without positive intent made explicit, or in a public setting — the psychological cost is high enough that the employee will alter their behavior not in the direction of the feedback but in the direction of whatever makes them feel safer with that manager in future. They will hide problems, over-report good news, and avoid showing their manager anything that could prompt another difficult interaction.

The solution is to treat feedback as a learnable skill set for both giver and receiver, and to build organizational norms that make feedback a continuous, normalized part of how teams function — not a special event reserved for performance appraisal season or crisis moments. When feedback becomes regular, low-stakes, and behavioral, it loses its power to threaten and gains its power to develop.