When Your Feedback Backfires (And How to Avoid It)

When you’re leading at pace, with high stakes and little time, the last thing you need is a feedback conversation that backfires. Yet this happens more than most leaders realise: you deliver honest, well-intentioned feedback and, instead of improvement, you get withdrawal, defensiveness, or subtle hostility. The relationship feels more strained than before, and you’re no closer to the performance change you needed. What if the way you deliver feedback isn’t the only thing that matters?

What we know from research: Research examining feedback effectiveness reveals something that should inform how leaders approach difficult conversations, especially when we feel under time pressure. If trust in the relationship is low, particularly if the team member doesn’t really trust their leader, negative feedback often backfires. It’s perceived as lower quality and can create defensiveness, no matter how accurate it is or how well you think you’ve delivered it.

My POV: More and more leaders I work with are investing real effort in developing their feedback skills: gathering data, timing conversations carefully and using trusted frameworks. These are excellent practices. A question I hear from clients is an additional question: ‘How do I make sure this conversation doesn’t damage the relationship or make things worse?’

The answer lies in the trust that exists between you and your team member. We can’t discount the work that needs to happen around these conversations. The good news is that there are quick wins that will help you build trust before, during and after the feedback conversation. 

As a Leader, what can you do?

• Be transparent about your intentions before the conversation. In high-pressure environments, people are already on guard. A brief message before a feedback conversation, something as simple as ‘I’d like to catch up about X – I want to make sure I’m supporting you well through this’, signals that what’s coming is supportive rather than critical. This small act of transparency before a difficult conversation can shift the entire dynamic before you’ve even begun. 
• Separate performance conversations from relationship-building. When you need to address performance challenges with someone you don’t have strong trust with yet, acknowledge this directly: ‘I recognise we’re still building our working relationship, and I want to make sure this conversation helps towards that. My goal is to support your success here.’ This transparency can reduce the defensive reaction that low trust typically triggers. 
• Follow through on what you agree to in feedback conversations. Trust erodes quickly when leaders identify development needs, agree on next steps and then disappear back into the busy-ness. Your team member is watching whether you show up. A five-minute check-in the following week signals that the conversation mattered and that their growth is genuinely on your agenda, not just a box you ticked.

What difference will it make? When trust is already there, and you’re thinking about the relationship not just the message, difficult feedback conversations usually go much better.  

Team members engage with your input instead of resisting it, which means less time managing  defensiveness and more time driving improvement. You’ll see genuine behaviour change rather than surface compliance, eliminating repeated conversations about the same issues. For you as a leader, this means less conflict, faster resolution of performance challenges, and a team that trusts your judgment when it matters most.  

If you would like support in building trust within your teams or in having difficult feedback conversations, our CoachAdviser team is here to help. You’re welcome to schedule a time with one of us to learn more.