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The quality of your job performance is one of the key factors in your ability to advance your career. Earning respect and recognition for your performance increases your capacity to receive promotions, salary increases and the types of assignments that enable you to enhance and develop your career. However, to deliver a quality performance, you need to know what that “looks like” and how your performance will be measured.

If you are lucky, you work for a manager who gives regular, useful feedback that helps you understand what’s expected and how your performance will be measured. But, if you are like most people today, you may not get feedback on a regular basis. Therefore, you will need to ask for it as part of your overall strategy for managing your career effectively.

The most important and often the most difficult aspect of the feedback process is your willingness and ability to receive it. Hearing how you are perceived by others can be a very valuable tool to your own growth and development, and it increases your overall self-awareness. In a Carnegie Mellon University study of several hundred knowledge workers cited by Daniel Goleman in his book, Working with Emotional Intelligence, every star performer demonstrated the competence of self-awareness. Certainly, the manner in which feedback is delivered has an impact on your ability to receive it. This is true for both positive and constructive feedback.

Surprisingly, I have worked with individuals who have as much trouble hearing positive feedback as they do negative. There are also managers who give positive feedback about efforts that lack quality, making it easy to discount what you hear from them. However, it is critical that when you do receive feedback, you avoid becoming defensive about what has been said. We all know managers who can be sarcastic and make comments that are not particularly constructive. In some cases, they are completely unaware of how they come across. Some managers feel uncomfortable and unskilled in providing coaching and feedback. They may resent your asking for it because it puts them in an awkward position. Some are reluctant to give feedback and may come across as dismissive when you solicit it because such interactions aren’t a good fit for their personality and temperament.

How do you assess the situation and determine the best way to get feedback? It is important to think about what you hope to gain. Do you need to better understand what is expected of you on a particular task or project? Do you need to know specific ways to overcome an identified weakness? Or, do you need to get feedback to change a particular behavior? Ideally, you should be asking for feedback in a specific and focused manner. Some individuals make the mistake of asking for feedback too frequently, and instead of soliciting information about a particular project or initiative, appear to be constantly in need of a pat on the back or reassurance about their overall performance. Soliciting feedback in this way makes it appear that you have a confidence problem.

It is a good idea to try to understand your manager’s style and temperament and develop an appropriate strategy for eliciting feedback from him or her. Some managers prefer brief check-ins; others need to provide feedback in a more formal setting such as a scheduled meeting. Observe how your manager interacts with others. If you have a colleague who seems adept at getting feedback from your manager, either observe how he or she requests it, or make time to ask outright what works. If your manager is someone who needs to prepare before giving feedback, try to schedule a meeting several days ahead and be clear about what you want to accomplish. This will give him or her time to think about what they want to say. If you need to clarify expectations, ask your manager if you can have a brief meeting to discuss the project or task. If your manager is the type who expects everyone on the team to be self-directed, you will want to think carefully about the language you use to solicit the feedback. Instead of asking outright for him or her to share expectations, you might initiate the conversation in the following way: “I wanted to meet with you to discuss my approach to the XYZ project.” Then outline your plan of action and make sure you and your manager are on the same wavelength. You might try saying: “Does that make sense? Do you have any suggestions for modifications to the plan?” Soliciting the feedback in this way demonstrates to your supervisor that you can be self-directed but that you want to make sure you are proceeding in a way that makes sense from his or her perspective.

If you are working on a particular performance issue, you can solicit feedback from peers as well as others with whom you have contact, in addition to your boss. Sometimes peers can provide helpful suggestions and can serve in a monitoring role. If you and your manager have created a developmental plan to address a performance issue identified in a formal review, then you might want to establish regular check-ins with him or her to determine how you are progressing. Soliciting feedback to work on changing a particular behavior can be trickier.

I once had a student who began nearly every sentence with “You know…” This became annoying for those who interacted with her on a daily basis. To succeed when making presentations, she knew she had to correct this habit. A professor (giving her some valuable feedback) recommended she get some help. She asked those around her to let her know each time she started to use the words “You know.” Fellow students gave her the “cut” sign every time they heard it, and after a few months, she no longer used the phrase.

Feedback given in a sarcastic or unconstructive manner can cause a blow to your self-esteem. Sometimes this occurs when there is truth to the criticism. In these situations, it is critical to maintain your composure. Think through what was said and, once you have calmed down and have some distance from the incident, make time to confront the individual, preferably in private. You might try the approach of, “I am trying to use the feedback I receive to improve my performance. However, I am not sure what you were trying to convey to me during yesterday’s meeting. Can you please help me understand what you were trying to say?”

I once had a manager with a bad temper who would holler at his workers during meetings. Once he did this to me, and after the meeting, I asked to have a moment of his time. In his office, I asked him directly, “I am confused about what just happened in our division heads’ meeting. To me, it felt like purpose of your outrage and barrage of negative comments was to embarrass me. Was there something else going on that I have missed? It’s hard to stay focused on and sort through what you are trying to say when it is 6 expressed in such a visceral manner.” As it turned out, he was using me as an example for issues he had with other staff members. It is possible that had I not spoken up, he would not have realized that his behavior had such a negative impact on what he was trying to achieve.

In some cases, providing guidance about how you need to receive feedback is an important part of soliciting it. I had worked hard for months on a marketing plan and had solicited feedback from several board members who worked in the field. After incorporating their feedback into the finished project, I gave the plan to my director (who was not knowledgeable about marketing). After receiving it, she called me on the phone to give me mostly negative feedback, beginning with, “Well, this thing is at least a start …” I immediately stopped listening to most of the rest of her comments, and when she finished, indicated that we needed to meet. This was a woman who had a reputation for being hypercritical and difficult to please. During my face-to-face meeting, I conveyed that although I welcomed constructive criticism, I preferred to get feedback about the positive components of an effort before launching into what needed improvement. I think she was generally surprised that someone would react to her in this way. She had been a college professor and was used to making those kinds of comments in the margins of term papers. I helped her to see that she was now in a different role as a manager, and old methods of feedback were no longer appropriate.

Asking for feedback and getting it increases self-awareness and helps you improve how you do your job. Improving your job performance ultimately increases your self-esteem. If you keep this in mind, it will be easier for you to ask for feedback on a regular basis. Determine what approach works best for you and your manager and create a plan for making it happen. If you tend to get defensive around feedback, pick some areas that make you feel less vulnerable and start there. Once you’ve practiced asking for feedback about one area, it will be easier to solicit it for other aspects of your work and performance.

This article originally appeared in the Sentinel in February 2002. Source